


Wicked Games

by negansflower



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gentle Negan (Walking Dead), Mild Smut, Negan (Walking Dead) Being an Asshole, Negan (Walking Dead) Swears, Negan (Walking Dead) is an automatic warning, Negan Being Negan (Walking Dead), Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Negan (Walking Dead)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-03-13 22:42:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13580466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/negansflower/pseuds/negansflower
Summary: The world of the dead was not kind. The world of the living hadn't been kind to Tulip, either. She was ready to die, but could never bring herself to pull the trigger. When Negan and the Saviors found her, half-dead, that began to change. A rocky tumultuous road of death and destruction faced her down, and Tulip stared it right back. She learns to find herself again after her difficult past, and the world of the dead starts to seem like a world she could live in.





	1. All You Have is Your Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for clicking on my fanfic! This is a Walking Dead fanfiction featuring Negan (mostly based on the television rendition) and an original female character of mine. (My model for her is Alexa Chung if you'd like to get an idea of how I pictured her!)
> 
> You will notice that some major events are out of order from how they happened on the show. I have played around with the timeline quite a bit. My fanfic is taking place over a longer period of time than the "All Out War" arc on the show did. This is simply because I wrote the events the way they would work best for my character and her own plot. 
> 
> Each chapter will have the name of a song at the beginning (or sometimes one in the middle, too!). You'll also notice that the chapter titles are lyrics from the songs that inspired the chapter. Music is a MAJOR inspiration for my writing, so I wanted to share what song inspires each chapter of this story as I write it. 
> 
> I will also provide a trigger warning: In later chapters there will be discussions of rape/sexual assault and PTSD. 
> 
> PLEASE NOTE this work is intended for mature readers! It will include adult themes and foul language. (Thanks, Negan.)
> 
> Again, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

**Arsonist’s Lullaby - Hozier**

 

She thought she was the only one. She hadn’t seen another face that didn’t have flesh in its teeth for months. Maybe it was years… She couldn’t remember. The days all bled together lately. Sometimes the nights seemed to last for days. And the sunlight was always gone too soon.

Her water was long gone. A few pieces of venison jerky were keeping her sustained. She knew it wouldn’t last much longer. A human could survive a long time without food, but only three days without water. 

Maybe the sweet release of death would claim her soon. Sometimes she prayed for it. Was there anyone even listening? She closed her eyes where she lay against an abandoned car, and sent up a plea to someone, _anyone_ who might hear her. _Just end it… Please. I can’t do it anymore._

Her Sig Sauer became as heavy as a bowling ball where it sat holstered at her back. She never could bring herself to pull it on herself. Even if she had any bullets, which were long gone by now, she wouldn’t do it. She wished for death at the hands of a roamer, a hostile, God, _anyone_. But never by her own hands. Maybe today would be the day. As the sun sank lower in the sky, the temperature dropped quickly with it. Was winter already coming? She could see her breath crystallizing before her eyes. Maybe, if she was lucky, the cold would claim her at last.

She felt her eyes close, then… She had no idea how much time had passed when she opened them again. The sun was halfway to rising again in the east. She ahd passed out, and slept through the night. Staring at the pink and orange sky, she heard the reason she had awoken. An engine. A big, loud engine. Barreling down the road in her direction. With what little energy was left in her body, she crouched behind the car, hoping whoever it was would just pass her by.

The huge military truck slowed when it reached the congested part of the road. The powerful vehicle pushed the other cars out of its way so it could fit through. She let out a sigh of relief. They would just keep going once the road was clear…

Of course, she had never been particularly lucky.

The truck sputtered to a stop, and the engine went silent.

She couldn’t see, but she heard voices. One in particular gave orders. “Search these cars! I’m sure some sorry assholes left some great shit behind.” His voice commanded power, and she could hear the swagger in his step. She sunk farther behind the car, hoping and praying they wouldn’t come this far off the road. She drew her pistol and gripped it tightly. No bullets… But they didn’t need to know that if it came down to a confrontation. They rifled around for a while, collecting whatever they thought would be useful. When she heard the truck’s engine turn over, she thought she was in the clear. What she didn’t hear, was the steps behind her.

All the breath rushed out of her body when a gun clicked at the back of her head. “Drop it,” a voice said. This was a different voice. Not the swaggering leader she heard before. She dropped her gun. It wouldn’t do her much good anyway. The man kicked it away.

“Negan!” the guy yelled, “I got somethin’!”

She stayed frozen, crouched by the tire of the car that failed to hide her. She stared at her worn boots. There was another set of footsteps, and this time they stopped in front of her. She shifted her eyes up and was met with a set of black boots. There was fresh blood splattered there. “On your feet,” the man behind her commanded. She didn’t know if she could stand without passing out again.

She gathered her strength for an agonizingly long moment, and slowly stood, keeping her eyes downturned. Black spots came in and out of her vision and she wobbled. No one reached out to help her stand. The black boots shifted closer, and the gun barrel was pressed harder into her skull.

“You gonna look at me, or keep countin’ the ants down there?” the leader finally spoke.

She didn’t move.

“Shit,” the man scoffed. “Is this bitch deaf?”

“I heard you,” her voice came out as a whisper, when she had intended it to be strong. She lifted her head now to the man who stood more than a foot taller than her. Maybe it was because he was the first human she had seen in God-knows-when, but this man was certainly very handsome. He wore black leather with a crimson red scarf tucked at his throat. The black jacket was stained with fresh blood, like his boots. His face was dusted with scruff, and his black hair was slicked back. His eyes never left hers. This man exuded leadership. His lips became a smirk as she took him in, mouth agape. Then she saw the men behind him. She counted six, but there was certainly more she couldn’t see. They were all armed to the teeth. Military grade rifles, machetes, swords, and… Her eyes landed on the compound bow a young man held. She almost smiled for the first time in a very long time. A bow string between her fingers was a feeling she missed…

“You got a name, sweetheart?” the leader cooed. She didn’t meet his eyes again, for fear that the intensity in them would bring her to her knees.

Her name? Shit… _Shit!_

How long had it been since someone said her name?

She spotted a pink unicorn sticker on the butt of one man’s gun. It reminded her of a flower… Her favorite flower. She always asked for them on her birthdays… How old was she? She couldn’t think of it. She couldn’t think of her own name. Her mind drifted back to that flower. She saw I clearly in her mind. The only clear thought that would materialize in that moment.

  
“Tulip,” she croaked. A few men chuckled.

  
“Well then, Tulip,” the leader spoke, popping the  _p_ at the end of the word. “I’m Negan. And if you don’t mind my observation, it looks like you may be in need of my assistance.”

She might have passed out then. She couldn't really remember. She didn’t dream, either. But she had the most restful sleep of her life.

__

When she opened her eyes, she found herself on a gurney. The paper cover crinkled beneath her. There was an IV in her arm, pumping much needed fluids into her body. She almost groaned with pleasure when she saw the fresh bottle of water next to her bed. She downed the entire thing. In that moment, she didn’t care where she was. She didn’t care how she got there, all she cared about was the water now gliding down her throat and the sweet fluids in her veins.

The room she was in was bright. The sun shone through the wrinkled paper blinds. It was midday. A small medical table stocked with needles and scalpels and such sat in the corner. There was a locked cabinet filled with various other tools and medicines. Cheesy inspirational posters and medical graphs hung on the walls all around her. Tulip tried the door, but it was locked from the outside. She took a seat on the gurney. 

  
She was alone for a while. She sorted out her thoughts from yesterday. Was it yesterday? It could have been… She didn’t know how long she had been asleep.  
Tulip jumped where there was a light knock at the door.

She didn’t know whether to respond, so she waited.

The man who entered was older than the people she had seen yeste—whenever it was. He wore a white coat and a stethoscope around his neck. His white hair was receding down the back of his head. His face was kind looking. He went right to work, collecting thermometers and other instruments Tulip didn’t know the names for.

“Hello Tulip,” he turned to where she lay. “How are you feeling today? I’m glad to see you awake.”

Her voice was still gruff from dehydration. “I’ve been better. But nothing I can’t handle.” It was still weak, but stronger than it had been. She cringed inwardly at the meek impression she must have made on the guy she saw yesterday. He probably thought she was useless. 

The doctor laughed. “Ah. A sense of humor. You’re healing nicely, then.” He stuck a thermometer in her mouth so she couldn’t respond. The doctor helped her sit upright on the edge of the gurney, and took a small hammer to her knees. Her reflexes jerked. He then pressed his freezing stethoscope to her back that was exposed through the paper gown she wore. She gasped lightly. “It’s cold, I know. I apologize.” She grunted with the thermometer still pressed under her tongue. Finally, the doctor removed the piece of glass. He seemed satisfied with whatever he saw.

“So, what’s my diagnosis?” Tulip tried to joke.

  
The doctor laughed softly. “You’ve improved drastically from when they found you. A few days’ sleep must have done the trick.”

  
A few days’ sleep? Jesus… She had been worse-off than she thought.

  
He then removed the IV from her arm and taped a cotton ball over the spot. “Listen,” he said quietly, “Be careful with Negan. He will manipulate you to get what he wants. He... This place... It's not what it seems. Just… Be wary. Please.”

  
“Wait,” she said as the doctor packed his things back into his bag. “What are you talking about?” He didn’t say another word before he left, locking the door behind him.

 

A meek looking blonde girl in a black dress came by a few minutes later with some clothes and underwear. Tulip hadn’t even though about it, but someone had taken hers off while she was unconscious. She shuddered.  
The bra and underwear were a little too sexy for her liking, but they fit relatively well aside from the cups that were barely touching her breasts they were so large. The torn jeans were a bit loose too, and the sleeves of the military green sweater stretched past her fingertips. She supposed it was better than that itchy paper gown. The irl locked the door again after she left.

Another few minutes went by. Then there were three hard and deliberate knocks at the door. Whoever it was didn’t wait for a response.  
The leather-clad man from that day came sauntering in. He still wore his same black leather jacket, but it was open now, showing his worn out grey t-shirt. This time, he wasn’t wearing a smirk. His face was cold and stern. Still handsome… But the look in his eyes made her feel small.

“Tulip,” he drawled, extended every syllable of her new name. “You were half dead when we found you. But here you are… Alive. Healthy.” His voice was rough, yet it glided over her ears smoothly. “You should be on your knees thanking me for saving your ass.”

She didn’t miss the innuendo in his voice.

“Well, forgive me, _your majesty_ \- or whatever they call you, but I don’t recall my asking for your help.” She knew what they called him. Negan. She didn’t think she could have forgotten it.

  
He stopped suddenly to stare at her like she had three heads. “Apparently, I didn’t make a very good first impression.” She hadn’t noticed him carrying it before, but he swung a bat over his shoulder with barely concealed bravado. A baseball bat, the striking end wrapped in barbed wire. “I’m Negan. And _this_ ,” he lifted the bat to Tulip’s face. “This is Lucille.”

She wondered how many lives had been claimed by the weapon. He was trying to intimidate her. She knew she looked weak, but she refused to  _be_ weak. 

Tulip breathed a laugh. “Lucille, huh?” Negan rested the bat back on his shoulder. “Yeah, I used to name my sex toys too. My favorite was named Gerard.” She whistled loudly, “Gerard and me had some good times.”

Negan smiled now. His teeth shone bright against his dark stubble. “Funny.” He seemed to have a perpetual cocky lean - never still, his back never rigid. Another way to assert his leadership.

“So, Negan,” she drew out his name on her lips. “Where am I, exactly?”

He smirked. “How ‘bout I show you?”


	2. Into the Jungle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for continuing to read! These first few chapters will be quite short and a bit slow, but the action will pick up very soon, I promise!

**Jungle – X Ambassadors**

 

Tulip followed Negan through dark hallways, lined with doors on either side. It seemed too empty for the middle of the day. Their footsteps echoed off the bare grey walls. Behind Negan, Tulip took in his body language. His steps swaggered and swayed as he rested that bat behind his head. She hadn’t seen much of him, but Tulip’s first impression of Negan was that he was a power-hungry man who used his charm and good-looks to coerce people into following him. But, she supposed one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

  
They walked quite a long way before they reached their destination. Tulip thought he might have been trying to show her just how large his compound is. Negan led her through a door to the outside with a flourish of his bat. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the sunlight, but she could hear the groaning of roamers. And a lot of them. She felt Negan standing close behind her. Watching.

When the spots cleared from her vision, the sight was nothing short of impressive. They were on a balcony overlooking a mine-field of roamers. They were held in place to protect the chain link gate into the compound.  
“Holy shit,” Tulip whispered. She didn’t care that her mouth hung open. It was one hell of a sight. How many others had thought of using the dead to their advantage?  
Negan leaned down near her ear. “Pretty fucking cool if I do say so myself.”

After showing her the fence, Negan led Tulip down the outdoor corridor. From what she could see, they seemed to be in some kind of industrial park. Negan’s compound was what looked to her like an abandoned factory. They came to a set of double doors, and he threw them open, letting Tulip through first. He rested a hand on her back to guide her, and she tried not to show how uncomfortable she was at the casual touch. They were again on a balcony, this time overlooking a huge warehouse. The stuffy dark room was filled wall-to-wall with people bustling about. They looked miserable, like most of them hadn’t bathed in weeks. “Check this out,” Negan whispered to Tulip.  
When they saw Negan on the platform, they silenced. Then every single one of them dropped to their knees.  
Tulip could not believe her eyes. Perhaps her snap-judgement of Negan was correct.

“The Saviors have gone out into the world and fought the dead and come back with some really good shit. Some of that stuff can be yours… If you work hard and play by the rules.” He glanced at Tulip when he mentioned the rules. “Tonight, everybody gets fresh vegetables at dinner. _No points needed_.” The people below them clapped and chattered about their reward. Negan turned to Tulip again. “You see that? Respect.” He whispered roughly. “How do you like that? They’re still on their knees.” A wink. Then he stomped his foot and yelled, startling her. “ _As you were!_ ”

As he led her deeper into the compound, a number of things floated through Tulip’s head. What the hell did he mean by points? He mentioned something called The Saviors. It didn’t seem like he was doing much saving around here.

The room they came to was much different from anything she had seen. In fact, it was down-right out of place. The room was candle-lit and filled with lavish leather furnishings stacked with decorative pillows. In the far corner was a bar stocked with glasses and liquor. The walls were lined with oddly shaped mirrors. A few women – Tulip counted five, lounged around the room. Two brunettes were sipping Brandy at the bar and chatting quietly. A tall red-head sat alone with headphones in her ears scribbling in a notebook. A busty dark skinned woman read a book, and a blonde, the same woman who brought Tulip the clothes, sipped wine directly from the bottle.

“Ladies,” Negan purred. “Say hello to our guest. Ladies, this is Tulip. Tulip, ladies.”

One of the brunettes took her in head-to-toe and snapped at Negan, “Already replacing Sherry?”

She just got here, and now she was taking someone’s job?

Negan approached the woman with the hand that wasn’t clutching Lucille held up defensively. Tulip tried to overhear their hushed exchange, but Negan was too careful. He didn’t want to give away too much information to her too soon.

The blonde woman from before stared at Tulip. She was so young… 18 maybe, 19 at most. She looked miserable. “Thanks,” Tulip said quietly to her. She was almost afraid she would spook and hide. “For the clothes.”  
The girl said nothing, and went back to her wine.  
Negan was back at Tulip’s side quickly, guiding her out of the room “Well, ladies, I will be seeing some of you later tonight.” Negan grinned. “Tulip and I need a have a little chat.”

Tulip next found herself in another lavishly decorated room. Negan’s bedroom, apparently. This one was bigger than the last where the women were. There was a full-sized suede couch, the two lounge chairs to match, and a glass coffee table between them. The walls were lined with bookshelves, but they were disappointingly empty. A few classics lay here and there, but apparently, Negan wasn’t one for literature. In the center of the room was an unfairly cozy-looking California king bed. It was layered with plush pillows and silk sheets. Tulip wished she could crawl in it and sleep for a few more days.

Negan laid Lucille in the corner carefully and removed his leather jacket, draping it over the bat.

“Have a seat,” he said warmly. A completely different person from the man who made an entire community drop to their knees.  
Tulip sat on the arm of one of the chairs. Negan plopped onto the cushions across from her. “So,” he began, “What do you think?”

She crossed her arms casually. “I must admit, it is impressive.” Negan leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head confidently with a smirk. His shirt lifted to expose a bit of his stomach. Tulip averted her eyes. “But,” the smirk fell. “Those women back there… All dressed like cocktail waitresses. What the hell is that about?”  
The cocky bastard’s grin grew and he chuckled lowly. “Those lovely ladies are my wives.”

It took every bit of her composure to keep from laughing out loud. Wives? Jesus Christ, this guy really is a psychopath.

“I know, know,” he chided, “It sounds shitty. But they are only there because they want to be. They serve me, and in exchange I protect them and the people they love.”  
Tulip now had a feeling she knew what Negan wanted to discuss.

“Why did you show me this place?” she asked. "Why did you show me your wives?"

Negan smiled like he knew the way this conversation would end. “I thought I should show you your…” he searched for the word, “options.”  
Tulip didn’t suppress her laugh his time. She walked over to the shelf on the wall to peruse the books. Negan knew what she was doing, though. She turned her back to him. To show him he would not intimidate her. He saw it as a new challenge. Just like getting Rick Grimes to submit those few days ago.  
Treasure Island caught Tulip’s eye. It had been her favorite book as a young girl.

“There’s plenty more where that come from.” Negan told her, “In the library.”

She stopped, and began to smile, hesitantly. “You have a library?”

“Of course I do. My people can get you anything your heart desires.”  
Tulip now sat on the edge of the bed. Her inner groan was borderline sexual when the soft surface met her legs. “So,” she said matter-of-factly, “Let’s get down to it. My options.”

"See, from what I saw of you out there, I can't count on you to be a soldier. I need the strongest people I can get. So," Tulip started to shake with anger. She was  _starving_ and halfway dead when he saw her. That was no place to make a judgement on what she was capable of. "I can offer you three paths to chose from."

  
There was a silent moment when their eyes met. Negan’s piercing eyes tried to melt the ice in Tulip’s. He never looked away, and neither did she. “Understand that no matter what you choose, you will work for me one way or another.”

Silence.

“For example,” he began, “You can work for me as one of the dead ones on the fence. Or, you can live in that shitty dust-bowl and do menial labor for points. _Or_ – and this is the one I’d choose if I were you - you can live in the lap of luxury as a wife.”

Tulip heard the options. But from the look in Negan’s eyes, she knew she didn’t have a choice. She laughed humorlessly. “You know what I think?”

Negan’s stare narrowed. “I think we both already know what my choice is going to be.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page.” He grinned.

“So, are you going to get down on one knee or something?”

 __

 

She was not given a very warm welcome from Negan’s other wives. They gave her clothes – several short dresses. They fit well. Apparently they had belonged to the Sherry she had heard someone mention earlier.  
Tulip learned their names, but they didn’t care much to remember hers. Frankie, the red head, had laughed when Tulip introduced herself. The paler brunette was named Tanya. Her friend was Serena. The quiet dark skinned woman was Brandy. The blonde woman – Amber – was the only one who spoke to Tulip. She was offered a glass of wine, and took it gladly.

“So,” she asked Amber after they had a few libations together. “What’s Negan’s deal?”

  
“His deal?” her voice was sweet. Like the song of a baby bird.

  
“Yeah. The bat, the fence, the wives?" She shuddered at the word  _wives._  "I mean, who put the psychopath in charge?”

  
“Jesus, keep your voice down!” Amber hissed. She seemed to have reason to believe Negan would overhear them. Like she had let her tongue slip before, and had been punished.

  
Frankie must have heard her, because she chimed in. “Negan takes what he wants. And when he doesn’t get it, someone ends up on the receiving end of that damn bat.”

Tulip knew she would be in for a wild ride.


	3. Are you Insane Like Me?

**Gasoline - Halsey**

 

The first time that Negan had truly scared her, was the day she feared for her friend’s life. Amber had cheated. And that… That was against the rules.  
They were all commanded to gather in the main warehouse. Amber’s lover, Mark, was tied to a chair. The whole ordeal seemed normal to the people. Like just another show of power from Negan.

Negan entered from above, banging Lucille on the rails signaling his arrival. The people around Tulip dropped to their knees. She had come to learn the wives didn’t bow to him in situations like this. At least there was one redeemable fact to this shit-show. Still, Tulip had a feeling it was to preserve their pretty knees rather than show they were equal to him in any way.

  
Negan seemed somber, but Tulip saw the excitement in his eyes.

“You know the deal,” he began, “What’s about to happen... is gonna be hard to watch.”

It was then that Tulip spotted Negan’s lackey standing at the burning furnace. She had a feeling this would be messy.

“I don’t want to do it,” Negan said. Tulip scoffed. _Liar_. “I wish I could just ignore the rules and let it slide but I can’t! _Why_ ,”

The entire room said as a chorus “ _Rules keep us alive._ ”

Negan started down the stairs. He stopped on the first landing down. “That… Is… _Right!_ We survive... We provide security to others. We bring civilization back to this world! We are – The Saviors. But we can’t do that without rules. _Rules_ are what make it all work! I know it’s not easy, but there’s always work. There is always a cost! Here, if you try to skirt it, if you try to _cut that corner_ …”

Negan paused. Tulip knew he was a wrathful man, but had never truly seen his wrath come out. If she was being honest, it was terrifying. He laughed lowly to himself. “…Then it is the iron for you.”

There a pause pregnant with fear. Negan made eye contact with Tulip. He knew she would already have hers locked on him.

He made the rest of his way down. “On your feet.”

They all rose, silently. 

Mark was dripping sweat and practically pissing himself from fear. Amber huddled close to Tulip.  
Negan smiled the whole time while he put on the welding gloves and was handed the red-hot iron. “Mark,” he said, “I’m sorry. But it is what it is.”

Amber began to sob quietly. Tulip held her, but never took her eyes off Negan.  
When he pressed the iron to Mark’s face, she first heard the scream. Then she heard and smelled his burning flesh.  
Amber screamed into her shoulder. The sadistic bastard had the balls to make eye contact with Tulip and smile as he pressed the iron onto his face harder. He only pulled it away when Mark had passed out. His melted skin stuck to the iron like glue when it was pulled away.

“Ah, that wasn’t so bad now, was it?” Negan laughed again, handing the iron back to Dwight. Later Tulip would come to learn that the woman before her, Sherry, had been married to Dwight but married Negan to save her husband from certain death. When they had tried to escape, Dwight got the iron.

“Jesus,” Negan scoffed. “He pissed himself.”  
Tulip quickly turned Amber away and led her from the room before she saw the aftermath of her lover’s torture.

She had been told stories of Negan’s brutality… Had seen it a few times in the first few weeks. He had tried to intimidate her. But she had never felt fear. Today, as her friend sobbed in her arms, was the first time.


	4. Ripped at Every Edge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING! This chapter will deal with PTSD related to rape/sexual assault, and a terminated pregnancy.

**Colors (Stripped) - Halsey**

 

The second time she truly felt afraid of Negan was the first night he called her to his room to fulfill her duties as “wife”.

He had given her a few weeks to adjust to her new life. To be comfortable in the black dresses and heels they were made to wear.

After dinner tonight, one of the workers had come to the wives’ lounge and asked for Tulip. Apparently, Negan often asked for a few girls to service him at once. Amber had given her hand a reassuring squeeze before she left.

Negan was spread-eagle on his couch sipping brandy when she arrived. He wore a white t-shirt and jeans, and his hair had been freshly washed. At least he had the decency to shower…

He sat up when he saw her and smiled lustfully. “Tulip,” he said, his voice low and seductive. “Have a seat. Would you like a drink?”

She sat. “What do you got?”

“I got a good brandy, scotch, bee—“

“Whiskey?”

Negan smirked. “I like the way you think.”

The truth was, Tulip desperately needed something strong. She felt her legs begin to tremble. She hadn’t been intimate with a man since—

“On the rocks?”

“Neat. Make it a double.”

“ _Hell. Yes._ ” He laughed. “Most of the ladies can’t hold their liquor. Glad to see you’re not a lightweight.”

Tulip smiled tightly. When he brought her the alcohol she didn’t hesitate to down the first half in one gulp. The burn was a familiar and welcome sensation. She already felt it soothing her nerves.

“God damn! You just get hotter the more I get to know you. I am very much going to enjoy tonight.”

__

They drank and talked and drank some more. Tulip learned about Negan’s deals with the neighboring communities. That would explain why the “runs” were always so successful. They weren’t doing any of the work. Negan left out the part where he beat the holy shit out of Rick’s friends.  
Tulip felt herself get tipsy, but she stayed aware of Negan slowly inching closer on the couch as they spoke. She could smell him now. Alcohol, sweat and pine soap. It was almost as intoxicating as the whiskey.

His voice dropped to a whisper now, and his eyes shifted to her lips.

She felt her breath quicken. She began to worry that he would be able to hear the pounding of her heart.

Negan took her empty glass and set it on the coffee table. Her eyes followed his every movement. He was slow and gentle. He could tell she was nervous.  
Tulip may have forgotten to breath when he cupped her neck with his hand and leaned his lips down to meet hers. They were soft. Oh, _God_ , they were so soft. Such a contradiction to the rest of him. His scent overwhelmed her. She felt drunk, but not from the whiskey. His lips moved slowly and gingerly with hers.  
She probably would have grabbed onto his collar if her hands weren’t trembling so badly. When he trailed his kisses down her jaw and to her neck, goosebumps rose all over her body. He focused on her neck, kissing and sucking and biting in a way that made her legs go weak.  
Tulip’s breathing became unsteady when he moved her to the bed and climbed on top of her. She instantly sobered, and began to panic. The memories came flooding back… It felt like she was back there on that horrible night…

Negan pulled away. “Tulip?”

She couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t think.

 

Her body... It wasn't hers. It was someone else's and they wouldn't let go. She lost herself. They wouldn't let go of her... They never let go. She didn't know where she was. Who she was. She was a puddle of fear and tears and panic and--

 

Negan sat her up next to him. He grabbed her shaking hands. “Jesus, Tulip.”

“I’m sorry.” She breathed through her tears. She felt like her lungs were closing.

 

Negan put his arm around her and pulled her to his chest. “It’s okay, darlin'. Take a breather.”

 

She didn’t know how long they sat there. She didn’t know how long it took for her to be able to breathe again.

 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into his chest. _Shut up shut up shut up!_ She yelled internally. “I just… It’s been so long…”

Negan pulled back to look at her. “Hard times? Shit, I understand a good dry-spell.”

“No, it’s not… I just…”

Negan waited for her to speak.

When Tulip looked into Negan’s eyes, she found herself telling him something she had never told anyone. The look he gave her told her she could trust him with such a dark part of her.

  
Her voice shook as she spoke. “When I was nineteen… I… I was raped.”

Negan let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Jesus fucking Christ… _Tulip_ …” His chest tightened. She had been raped. And here he was, about to take her like he took his other wives. He hated himself in that moment. 

 

Tulip had never voiced it out loud. She shouldn’t be telling him… She shouldn’t let him know her weakness. But she kept talking despite her mind protesting every word.

“He lived in my building in college. He held a knife to my throat while he fucked me. He told me that if I screamed, he would kill me. If I went to the police, if I told anyone, he would find me. I never finished my degree.”

For the first time in a while, Negan did not have words.

Tulip felt her lips moving again, but was not sure why.  
“I shut down. I lost everything. My family… It was like I died. And when I went to the abortion clinic to rid myself of his… seed, my family disowned me.”

Her eyes were welling with tears. “I have never told anyone.”

Negan stared at her with wide eyes, but also with eyes full of admiration. It must take immeasurable strength to come through something like that alive. Negan’s past had been difficult, but did not compare to the horrors Tulip had faced. And at nineteen years old. “Holy fuck.”

Tulip felt a weight lifted from her shoulders. Perhaps saying everything out loud was one part of the healing process she never really got to.

  
“So that’s where Gerard comes in?”

She couldn’t help but laugh. It was a strangled, nervous sound. She had expected him to run, to be disgusted by her unclean past.

Negan handed her the glass of whiskey back. “You can take comfort in knowing that prick probably died a horrible death, though, huh?”

  
She wished the though comforted her. But it didn’t. Whatever had happened to him, he deserved worse.

“Tulip?” Negan was whispering now.

She looked him in the eyes. She saw… _awe_ in them. “I will never force you into something you aren’t comfortable with. All you gotta do is say no.”

  
For moment, her mind flashed back to her saying no. She said no over and over and over again. But _no_ meant _yes_.  _No_  mean more. _No_ meant _harder_.  _No_ meant _please fuck me_.

  
Negan saw the turmoil within her. “You always have a choice. You can always walk away. I will not hurt you."

She didn’t know why, but she believed him.


	5. Can't Hold Back

**Ain't No Rest for the Wicked - Cage the Elephant**

 

Unexpectedly, the next day, Negan asked Tulip to tag along with him to visit Alexandria. She agreed without hesitation. She had to admit she was curious about these “deals” Negan has been known to make with other groups. This one, Alexandria, was run by a particularly hard to conquer man named Rick. A man who tried to resist Negan’s force… She was eager to meet this one.

Amber had helped her get ready in her tightest dress yet. It hugged her body tightly, showing off her good figure. It wasn’t exactly from exercise and general healthiness, but rather malnutrition. Still, she looked skinnier than she ever had. It would seem Negan wanted to bring her along to show off his possessions. Tulip didn’t mind. She knew in her heart she didn’t belong to Negan, so who gives a shit what he thinks? She was ecstatic to be outside the walls. He could see from that night that the walls of the Sanctuary were closing in on her. She deserved to go, stretch her legs. He wanted to see what she would do – how she would handle them. She had handled such a tremendous burden in her life. He wondered if she could handle Rick. He also, frankly, felt guilty. He had forced her into something without knowing her story. He wanted to make up for it.

It was a longer ride to Alexandria than Tulip expected. Her legs started to ache form being cramped in the cab of a truck between Dwight and Negan. Up close, she could really see the burn scars on Dwight's face. She couldn’t imagine the pain of having the iron sear his skin off. She wanted to feel bad for Dwight – he lost his wife to Negan, was forced to bend to his every command, and then lost his wife for good. She wanted to, but in all reality, Dwight was utterly and completely a bonified asshole.  
Tulip jumped when Negan brushed her hair away from her ear to whisper, “Just stay by me. Follow my lead.”

She could feel phantom traces of his lips on her neck from last night before she had panicked... Goosebumps rose on her skin. Negan saw, and the bastard chuckled to himself. _Prick_ , she said to him with her eyes.

The trucked rolled to a stop at the gates of Alexandria. There was a sign at the gate. " _WELCOME TO THE ALEXANDRIA SAFEZONE"_ it read, " _Mercy for the lost, vengeance for the plunderers."_

Negan grabbed Lucille, but left Tulip to get out of the truck herself.

  
“That’s okay,” she said to no one in particular, rolling her eyes. “I got it.” Her ankles ached when she jumped onto the pavement with her heels. She never enjoyed wearing these even before the shit hit the fan, let alone now, during the god-damned end of the world.

Negan sauntered to the metal gate, and sang a bar to Beethoven’s 5th symphony. He hit the metal with Lucille three times. “Little pig, little pig! Let. Me. _In_!”  
A young, attractive man appeared at the gate. He looked like he should be the leader of a college fraternity. “Well?” Negan smirked. The man seemed quite confused.  
“Um… Who are you?” he asked.

Negan was baffled. “Oh, you had better be jokin’! Negan, Lucille – I know I had to make a pretty strong first impression!”

  
An older looking man strolled quickly to the gate to face Negan. He was tense, his body almost robotic in movement. He held hatred in his eyes.  
“Well, hello there.” Negan smiled. The two stared intensely at each other. Tulip assumed this man was the leader of Alexandria – Rick. He looked… tired. “Do not make me have to ask.” Negan’s voice almost became a growl.

Rick's voice sounded as tired as his body looked. “You’re early.”

The gate squealed loudly as Rick pushed it aside. Negan immediately stepped into his personal space – just one way to show Rick who’s the one holding the bat. “I missed you.” He grinned.

Behind Tulip, a Roamer growled. Negan grinned wider. “Come on out here, Rick! Watch this! _Callin’ it!_ ” With one backhanded swing of Lucille, the thing fell to the ground in a heap at Tulip’s feet. She scowled at Negan. “You mind? Watch the shoes.” He winked at her then – he was a cocky bastard, that was for sure.

He turned back to Rick. “See that? Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!”

  
Rick still stood there brooding. “All right everybody,” Negan yelled to the men gathered behind him and the trucks. “Let’s get started. Big day!”

It looked like Rick was on the verge of tears. Tulip caught the panic that flashed in his eyes for a moment as he spotted someone in the crowd of saviors. “Hey Rick!” Negan interrupted once again, “You see that? What I just did? That is some _service_! I mean, we almost get turned away at the gate. Who is that guy anyway? Do I get mad? Do I throw a fit? Do I bash some ginger’s dome in? Nope! I just take care of one of these dead pricks that could have killed one of y’all.” He faked a bow with a flourish of his hand. “Service.”  
Tulip was able to piece together what Negan may have done to get Rick and Alexandria to submit to his demands. His next move made her cringe. Negan swaggered past Rick, handing Lucille – the weapon that probably killed one or maybe more of his people – to him. “Hold this,” he smirked.

“Tulip, sweetheart,” he called over his shoulder. “Come meet my very best friend Rick.”

She wouldn’t admit it to herself, but the feeling of every set of eyes on her and the sound of her stilettos clicking on the pavement made her feel powerful. Even worse, she liked it. She looked Rick up and down, and felt a pang of pity for him. He was being humiliated. “This gorgeous piece of ass is Tulip – one of my wives.”  
If Rick was surprised by the mention of there being more than one wife in Negan’s life, he didn’t show it.

Arat, a woman who could make any man want to piss himself with a simple look, led the Saviors today. They followed Negan, Rick, and Tulip through the gate.  
If it wasn’t for the wall surrounding them, the place would have looked like any suburban neighborhood before the world went to shit. It was almost untouched. “Hot diggity dog!” Negan exclaimed at the sight of it. “This place is magnificent! An embarrassment of riches, as they say. Yes, sir, I do believe you are gonna have plenty to offer up.”

Rick didn’t try to hide it as he stared at someone – Tulip had assumed the dirty man with hair covering his face was one of the workers, brought along to help with the heavy lifting. No, Rick knew the man. “Daryl,” he whispered to him.

“No. Nope!” Negan quickly shut him down. “He’s the help. You don’t look at him, you don’t talk to him, and I don’t make you chop anything off of him.” Rick knew he was serious, and backed off. Another Alexandrian, however – a young and beautiful Latina woman – kept eye contact with Daryl.

Negan stepped between them. “Same goes for everyone,” he said mockingly. He inched closer to the woman when she didn’t submit. He was in her face now. “Right?”  
The two stared, and for a moment Tulip feared for the woman’s life. Begrudgingly she turned away, rolling her eyes. Negan smiled like a kid and pumped his fist at the little victory over the woman. He turned back to Rick, still grinning. “Phew… A _lotta_ suspense there. I don’t think she even knew how much.”  
The confrontation was over before it started.

“All right, let’s get this show on the road! See what kinda goodies you got in the cupboard!”

“We put aside half the supplies,” Rick said.

Tulip’s chest tightened. Negan was taking _half_ of everything these people had?

“No, Rick! No. You don’t decide what we take. _I do_.” Again, Rick backed down. “Arat!” Negan yelled.

The woman stepped forward, her sawed-off shotgun at the ready. “You heard the man! _Move out!_ ”

  
Negan clapped his hands like a little boy at the circus as his men fanned out into the town. “They’re just gonna search the houses a bit, keep the process movin’.”  
Rick’s people looked at him, disgusted that he allowed these brutes to enter their safe haven and uproot their lives.

Rick, still carrying Lucille, led Negan and Tulip through the town. Tulip felt the eyes of every man linger on her, but Negan always stayed one step behind her, asserting his dominance over her and over them – probably without even realizing it.

The Saviors carried chairs, mattresses, and other comfort items out of the homes. Tulip felt her chest tighten, but kept her head high.  
“You see this?” Negan said at the sight of everything. “This is the kinda thing that just tickles my balls! A little cooperation, and everything is pleasant as punch! You see, we really are reasonable people once you get to know us. Honest.” Negan reached down and took a soda out of a cooler waiting on the sidewalk, and offered one to Tulip. She shook her head.

Negan cracked open the can, took one big gulp, and tossed the rest to the ground. “Damn, I love this place.”

“Negan?” Tulip said. Rick flinched. It was the first she had spoken.

  
“Yes, darlin’?” Negan asked seductively. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close enough to feel his breath on her face. His other hand squeezed her ass. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he winked at Rick. For a split second her mind flashed to the previous night, the feeling of his hands on her skin suffocating her. She tensed. Negan could sense it, and backed off. Just a little – not enough for anyone to notice. But Tulip did.

“I think,” she said sweetly, “I’m going to go see what I can find.”

Negan smirked. She wasn’t really going to take anything – just get an idea about Alexandria. How many people, how many houses, how many guns. She always tried to think one, two, three steps ahead. Plan for anything. It’s how she managed to survive so long.

“Well, be careful.” Negan unsheathed the Glock at his hip, holding it out to her. It was a risky move on his part. Handing her a weapon. “No thanks!” Tulip wriggled out of his arms. She patted her thigh, where her stolen pistol was sheathed under her dress. One of the Saviors had set it down as they were packing for the run this morning. She grabbed it without thinking. She couldn't be outside the walls without a weapon. “I’m good,”

She would probably be punished for it later, but Tulip could not bring herself to care. As she sauntered off, she heard Negan whistle appreciatively.

Tulip had managed to gather that at least a hundred people or so inhabited Alexandria. Likely more than sixty able-bodied. She had no idea how many elderly or children… But she couldn’t imagine them surviving long – even here.  
When Tulip heard the gunshot from across the neighborhood, she unsheathed her small revolver. The Saviors took off running in the direction of the noise, but she didn’t. She walked slowly, confidently. Maybe, when she reached where she was going, she would find Negan’s corpse. The look on Rick’s face certainly showed that he wanted to kill him. Maybe, she and Amber and Frankie and the others could be free. Still, luck wasn’t usually in her favor.

She found the house the gunshot rang from, but one of the savior brutes tried to keep her from going in. Apparently, he didn’t recognize her. There was a commotion from inside the house. “Get out of my way.” She said calmly. The guy was an eye sore… A thick, greasy black beard, sickly pale skin, and yellowing teeth. He simply grunted in response. “Don’t test me, asshole.” Tulip warned, pulling back the hammer on the revolver. Silence from the man. She lifted the gun now, the barrel stuck into his soft belly. “Get out of my way!”

“Woah, what in the hell is going on here!” It was Negan. Coming out of the house. Alive, intact. Tulip didn’t know whether to be relieved or livid that he survived whatever happened in there.

“This asshole wouldn’t let me through.” She said through gritted teeth. Then a grin as she sweetly lied, “I wanted in on the action.”  
Negan almost laughed at the ridiculous act she was putting on. He turned to Rick, who was looking almost sick, with a silly smile. “Don’t you wish you had one of those? I mean, God damn.”

Tulip’s gun barrel was still pressed into the groaning man’s stomach. “This true?” Negan’s smile turned serious very quickly. “Did you mistreat my wife?”

  
“Sir… I, uh…” The man stuttered. A pause. “I didn’t know. I didn’t mean her no harm.”

“Intentions mean nothing when you broke a rule. That is a no no. You know what happens when the rules get broken." Negan whispered. He put his mouth down to Tulip’s ear so that only she could hear him. His words made her shiver. “Go ahead. Shoot him. Show me what you can do.”

She didn’t really know why, but Tulip squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger.

“Damn,” Negan grumbled, his lips still at her ear. “You are somethin’ else.”

Tulip took a walk to clear her head while Negan loaded up the community’s guns. Why did she kill him?

She had no idea… Something about Negan’s voice in her ear and the pistol in her hand made her feel like she had to. Needed to. She had killed before… But it was always self-defense. She was never the one to pull the trigger first. This was different. Everything was different, now.


	6. Set a Fire in My Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING! This is a bit smutty, so NSFW!

**Trouble (Stripped) - Halsey**

 

That night, Negan called her to his room again. This time, her knees weren’t weak. Her hands didn’t tremble. When he told her those things last night… She knew without a doubt that he meant it.

She didn’t knock before she entered – probably a mistake. Negan had his back to her, sliding a t-shirt over his head. She caught a glimpse of the tattoos hiding underneath.  
“Jesus,” he scoffed. “Ever try knocking?”

She plopped onto the couch and took Negan’s beer from the coffee table.

“Make yourself at home.” He breathed a laugh. He had just showered. His hair was freshly washed, spots of water showed on his black shirt where he was still wet. “You impressed me today.” Negan poured himself a double shot of whiskey before sitting down to face Tulip.

She let the taste of the alcohol as she gulped distract her from the hammering in her chest. Would he take her tonight? Would he be gentle with her? He didn’t seem like the type to be gentle.

“You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be here.”

“Here meaning this room?” she took another big gulp.

“I think you know what I mean.”

A pause.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go.” It wasn’t a lie.

The moonlight shining on his face through the curtains made Negan look soft. He held Tulips eyes as he rose, slowly bending his head to hers. His breath was hot on her lips as he waited.

He was asking permission.

Tulip nodded once.

  
His lips were softer than she remembered. Every move he made was careful, as if he played with live explosives. She felt like she could combust, but not in a way she had ever felt before. Negan ignored when she dropped the can of beer, spilling the contents on the rug. Tulip ran her hands along the neckline of his shirt, another silent permission given. His arms were around her waist, pulling her up to stand. She had walked here barefoot, and without the heels Negan really did tower over her, having to bend his neck in a way that couldn’t possibly be comfortable.

Why was she here? Why was she back? Why was she letting him touch her? She didn't know. Every alarm bell in her body was ringing. _Danger! Danger!_ They wailed. But she didn't want it to stop.

He began to lead her toward the bed covered in silk. Slowly, one step at a time. When the backs of her knees hit the edge, she removed her mouth from his to gasp. Her heart rate quickened.

  
That’s how it had happened… She was pushed back, until she had nowhere to go but the bed. Tulip could feel his slimy fingers all over her body and his—

 

“Hey,” Negan stared into her eyes, snapping her from her daze. “All it takes is one word. One word, and I swear to God I will never touch you again.”

Her breath was heavy as she stared down at their feet.

“Unless of course…” Negan had to add, “You ask me to.”

Tulip laughed.  _Really_ laughed.

  
Jesus… Had she forgotten how to laugh? The sound felt foreign. “You’re an asshole,” she whispered.

“Is that a yes?”

  
When she looked into his eyes, she had to wonder how many people ever saw this side of him.

So long… So long since she had been with anyone. So long since she so much as let a man kiss her. She forgot what it felt like. To be touched, for her body to take control over her mind.  
Tulip knew without a doubt that if she said no at any moment, Negan would not force her. She had no idea why, but Tulip trusted Negan when she looked into his eyes.  
When she gripped his waist to pull him closer, Negan had his answer. His mouth was on hers again, more insistent this time, but still careful. Every move was a question. When he found the zipper on the back of her dress with unsettling skill, it was a question. Tulip met his hand at her back, unzipping the dress herself.  
Every touch felt like fire, but she forced her fears down. She would never let any man have power over her body – not now, not ever. Her body was meant to be worshipped, never to be overpowered. She knew Negan wasn’t one to be submissive, but if he wanted her, he would kneel for her like he made his people kneel for him.

The scruff on his face scratched her neck and chest, and stray water droplets from his hair tickled her face.

Never again would someone have power over her.

Tulip gripped Negan shoulders and shoved him against the door behind him. The decorative frames on the walls rattled with the impact. It was so unexpected that for a split second, his face flashed with anger. It quickly turned to lust again. His mouth was back on her again – kissing, biting, sucking, licking. Tulip wondered what that mouth could do elsewhere.

She removed her own bra and panties. Her hands shook harder than she wanted them to. 

Then Negan’s shirt. She could see him throbbing through his jeans, but she wouldn’t touch him. Not yet. She wasn’t ready for… _That_.

She pulled his face from her neck, and he glanced over her shoulder to the bed. Another silent question.

 _No_.

Tulip positioned herself to lean on the wall. Hands on Negan’s shoulders, she guided him down, down, down. She would make him bow to her. It was her body, and she deserved to feel good. Even in this shitty ass world, she wanted someone to make her feel something. Everyone before had only wanted to take advantage of her, milking their own pleasure and leaving her empty.  
Literally and figuratively.

Negan never thought he would kneel to anyone or anything. But this woman – this empty, broken woman had him on his knees before her, and he was going to give her what she wanted.  
He kissed and sucked everywhere except the spot where she wanted him. Closer and closer to her center, he rubbed his stubbled chin on her thighs, his hands teased and gripped her ass. This man certainly knew what he was doing.

  
“ _Quit fucking around,_ ” Tulip growled through her teeth. The anticipation was beginning to be too much. She was afraid she might change her mind.

He must have been satisfied with himself and the effect he had on her, because the next second his face was buried between her legs.  
She gasped, her legs almost giving out beneath her, but Negan's grip on her kept her on her feet.

 _Holy shit_. Her mind spun. What this what it was supposed to be like?

Negan made sure Tulip found her release. No one had ever taken their time with her like he had. No one had ever thought about her. He wanted her to know that he wasn’t ever going to force her. He would never, ever do that to her, or anyone. So he took his time, teasing and sucking and working his fingers to show her just how good it can feel with him. She would begin to heal from what happened. Slowly. And Negan didn’t know why, but he wanted to be a part of that.

When she was spent, he cleaned her up, offered her his shirt, and a glass.

She lay lounged on the couch, wearing nothing but Negan’s t-shirt, with a glass of whiskey in her hand. Her neck was still flushed from the heat of their encounter.  
Since his name had escaped her lips quiet loudly in the heat of the moment, they had not spoken another word.

Perched on the corner of his bed, still shirtless, Negan spoke. “Why did you kill Danny today?”

So that was his name. Danny. Another name to add to her list of lives lost at her hand. She didn’t know why she killed him. Was it an act of defiance? No… Negan had wanted him dead. “It was a show, wasn’t it? Everything you do is a show.”

He laughed quietly. The tattoos on his chest and arms rippled. Tulip found herself wanting to get closer, see the detail, wanting to know the stories behind each one…

  
“Everything I do is to show those people who we are, and what we can do. I need them to know me.”

Tulip sat up to face him now. “Then who are you, Negan?”

His smile was humorless. “You don’t want to know.”

Tulip thought that maybe she did want to know. She felt strangely connected to this man. This twisted, sadistic, and maniacal man. He knew her secret. He knew why she was so… _Empty_. Why was Negan the way he was? What made him so ruthless? He struck fear into the heart of everyone he met. But not Tulip. 

“Just so you know,” Negan started, “If the fucker who did that you was alive, I can promise you that he and Lucille would become well acquainted.”

She wanted to laugh. Sometimes she tried to take comfort knowing that he and everyone he ever cared about likely died a horrible death, but it never helped. She still saw him every time she closed her eyes. Sometimes the liquor helped. Other times, it made everything worse. When she would have her moments, spiraling out of control, it was a crutch. She had been hospitalized at least twice for alcohol poisoning from trying to desperately forget in the years after. Two times that she could remember.  
One person, one stupid encounter. Her life had gone to shit. She had never gone to the police. Never told her parents everything no matter how distraught they became over her actions. She suffered deeply, and she suffered alone. With Negan was the first time in a very long time that she felt like someone else knew what she was going through. Knew what it was like to be so completely and utterly broken.

Without another word, Tulip put her dress back on and left for her own room.

She left her bra and panties on Negan’s floor.


	7. I'll Have You Beggin' For Mercy

**Dangerous - Royal Deluxe / I'm a Wanted Man - Royal Deluxe**

 

A few weeks later, gunshots rang out from the courtyard.

  
Two Saviors were dead. Because of a kid. Tulip had laughed when she found out. A fifteen-year-old managed to infiltrate the Sanctuary walls and shoot down two men before being stopped. He could have done better, but Tulip was impressed by him. That was why, when Negan decided he would return the kid to Alexandria himself, she asked to come along.

It had been too long since that first trip to Alexandria, and the walls of the factory were starting to close in on her again. For the longest time she had been accustomed to the big, open forests of Virginia. Not a stuffy makeshift apartment with nothing but a bed and a microwave. With a cautious look, Negan agreed.  
With the kid sitting between him and the truck driver, Steven, there was no room for her. She was about to tell Negan that she would be fine with riding in one of the other vans, when he said, “Why don’t you sit right here?” He was patting his lap.

She gave him a look as if to say, 'You have got to be kidding me.' But his eyes told her, as always, she had a choice. 'Only if you want to.' His eyes said.  
“Ah, what the hell!” she exclaimed. He opened the door for her and she climbed into the bed of the semi-truck, perching herself on Negan’s alarmingly boney knee. She regretted wearing one of her tighter dresses that day as they set out for Alexandria.

Negan smirked at the kid and introduced Tulip as his wife. He had apparently already met a few of the others girls while Negan was showing him around.  
The boy’s long shaggy hair was covering most of his face. Much like a typical rebellious teenager. But when he ticked his head to the right to shift the locks out of his vision, Tulip saw it. The gaping, red, irritated void where his right eye should have been.

The startled look she gave Negan made him laugh quietly, thankfully the sound was covered up by the sound of rubber on asphalt. She put her lips to his ear to whisper, “Did you—”  
Negan didn’t let her finish. “No.” He whispered, offended. “He’s a fucking kid.”

He had never intended to actually let Rick cut Carl’s arm off that day. Rick would have done it. But Negan would have stopped it. At least, in his mind, Negan liked to believe he wouldn’t stoop that low.

 

An hour into the ride, Tulip’s legs began to go numb, and she thought for sure she already had a bruise where Negan’s boney leg dug into her thigh. She tried to wiggle a little, get the blood flowing again, when Negan groaned softly behind her as she moved. She had been grinding her ass against him without realizing what she was doing. “Sorry,” she whispered. His breath was gruff and low and full of lust, but he kept his hands off her waist. She supposed, then, she was glad for the other wives. She wasn’t ready to take that step yet. At least he had someone else to help get out all of his… Sexual frustrations… While she figured out her shit. She told herself she was glad for the other girls. But sometimes she could hear them from down the hallway, their high-pitched, fake porn movie moans. Tulip hated it. But she would never admit it. Why did she find herself so attached to him, anyway? He didn’t belong to her. They belonged to him. Not the other way around. It would never be the other way around.

Apparently, Rick wasn’t home. And Negan showing up on their doorstep left the Alexandrians a bumbling mess of tears and panic.

Carl showed Negan to the front door of his father’s home. It was a decent-sized house – one Tulip never would have dreamed of affording before the fall. A normal, suburban family home. She had always wanted it. But could never have it. That wasn’t her life back then, and it sure-as-hell wasn’t now.

Three hard knocks on the yellow wooden door with Lucille. A few Saviors set up a guard around the perimeter of the home. Unnecessary, but, Negan had to fuel his ego somehow.  
Negan was practically jumping with joy. Ready to see Rick tear Carl a new asshole for the stunt he pulled, or maybe just ready to see Rick cower and cry again. It was like a game with Negan.

A portly young woman answered the door. Her round face was framed by stray pieces of black hair, and her vintage-rim glasses made her look like she should be working the reference desk at a law library. Tulip saw the image of it clearly in her mind. She would have smiled pleasantly as she adjusted her glasses, ready to help find whatever book someone might need. She wasn’t smiling now. Her pleasant face was marred with fear and confusion as Negan pushed past her and into the home, whistling as he did so. The woman whispered something in a panic to Carl, but Tulip couldn’t hear it over Negan exclaiming, “Great! Great, great, great, great, great, _great!_ ”

The home was nicer on the inside. Stainless steel appliances in the kitchen and artsy wooden furniture sprinkled with baubles and decorative bowls and trinkets. This was the kind of place Tulip had always wanted.

“Where’s Rick?” Negan asked to no one in particular.

The reference librarian started to stutter a response. “I—Well, I…”

“Don’t care!” Negan sang. “Where’s Rick.”

“Um…” the woman stuttered again. Her hands were shaking. She was terrified of him. “O-out scavenging… For you.”

“Cool,” Negan smiled, glancing back at Tulip and Carl. “I’ll wait.” Tulip had perched herself on the island counter in the kitchen, watching.

“Uh, he… He went out pretty f-far. They might not be back today.” Her voice was shaky, and she looked to be on the verge of tears. “We’re running really low on everything. We’re practically starving here.”

Negan’s eyes widened as he leaned back to stare at her. Tulip had a feeling she knew what his next words would be but prayed he wouldn’t say what she knew he was thinking.  
“Starving?” he said.

_God dammit, Negan._

“You,” he gestured down to her body. “by _practically_ you mean _not really_.”

The look on the librarian’s face seemed as if she had just been stabbed in the gut with a screwdriver. The tears that had already started to form the moment Negan walked in were coming full force now. She took in a breath and turned her back to him, removing her librarian glasses and hiding her face. She sobbed quietly, but Negan, the incredible asshole, laughed.

He looked over to Tulip now, still laughing softly. “Really?” he mocked. Then to Carl, “You people seriously don’t have a sense of humor.”  
The woman was still crying, trying to compose herself. “Negan,” Tulip warned. “Come on.” Carl turned to her, as if he forgot she was there. Negan gave her a confused look, throwing up his hands like he did nothing wrong. She gave a pointed look to the crying woman. He rolled his eyes, sighing, and rubbed his face with his hand.

“Excuse me,” he turned to the librarian. “What’s your name again?”

The woman’s sobs stopped, and she picked her head up, still with her back to Negan. “Olivia,” she ground out through gritted teeth.

“Right, Olivia.” Negan reached out to her, gently touching her arm. The woman’s whole body went rigid and she sucked in a breath when he made contact. If she was terrified before, she was going to piss herself now. Slowly she turned to look at him. Her face had become red and splotchy, and her eyes were already swollen from the tears. “I am sorry for having been so rude to you just now.” Negan told her. The words were a bit robotic, but better than nothing.

“And it looks like we’re gonna be here for a while awaiting your fearless leader’s return… And if you’d like, I think it would be enjoyable to screw your brains out!”

This time Tulip brought her hand to her face, scoffing at him. _Idiot_.

Olivia’s face changed in a split second from meek reference librarian to a survivor of the god-dammed apocalypse. Negan, apparently, didn’t notice. He kept talking. “I mean, if, you know… You’re agreeable to it.”

Olivia’s mouth was pressed into a thin line when she brought her hand up and struck Negan in the face - _hard_.

Tulip gasped, quickly slapping her hand over her mouth. The look on Negan’s face… The sound of the slap... There would definitely be a red mark there. Tulip was laughing into her hand, trying desperately to quiet the sound, but that quite possibly may have been the funniest thing she had ever seen. The scared, trembling woman who managed to give Negan what he deserved. She wanted to give Olivia a standing ovation.

All heads snapped to Tulip her as she snorted through her hand. Olivia looked like she might pass out. Negan looked as though he might use Lucille to bash someone’s head in, but she couldn’t stop the laugh from bubbling out of her. “Something funny, _sweetheart?_ ” Negan growled, looking like he wanted to strangle her.

  
“No,” she snorted, “Not at all!”

  
Negan was angry. Normally he would have killed that woman. But, he did happen to insult her and then ask to fuck her. Plus, the sight of Tulip doubled over in fits of laughter as she sat on that kitchen counter stopped him. He didn’t want to kill Olivia... Not once he saw her like that.  
His anger-flushed expression faded, and he chuckled right along with her.

“All right!” he was still half-laughing. “I’m just gonna put my feet up and wait for my stuff to get here. Olivia! Would you be a lamb and make us a little lemonade?”

 

Carl was taking Negan through the house, showing him around. After checking the cabinets, Olivia half-mumbled an announcement that she needed to go find some lemonade.  
“Hey, Oliva!” Tulip called out as the woman was about to leave. She hopped down from the island, meeting a still-tearful Olivia near the front door. The woman was flustered and still shaky. “You okay?” Tulip asked, resting a hand on Olivia’s shoulder. She could tell she wasn’t.  
She shook her head at Tulip.

“Come here,” she said to Olivia, guiding her over to the dining room table and sitting her down onto one of the wooden chairs.

“I—” Olivia tried to speak, but it came out as a shaking sob. “I thought h-he was going to k-kill me. I didn’t… I don’t know why I did that.”

“Are you kidding me?” Tulip smiled at her, “That? That was _awesome._ ”  
Olivia quipped an eyebrow at her.

“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve wanted to do what you just did?” Tulip continued, “I mean, it was about time somebody did it!”

Olivia started to smile through her tears now, and stopped shaking. “Yeah… He did deserve it, didn’t he?”

“Hell yes he did. And he knows that. So, no, he’s not going to kill you for slapping him.”

Tulip could have sworn Olivia huffed a small sigh of relief. “You’re… His wife?” Olivia asked, a little judgmental. Her voice was stronger now. Tulip really didn’t feel like explaining the whole harem of wives thing today, but she sighed, shifting in her seat a little. “Sort of. I’m… One of them. His wives, I mean.”  
Olivia looked like she might want to throw up. “What?” she blurted.

“I know, I know, it sounds fucked up.” Tulip added defensively. She realized that Negan had offered her the same sentiment when she first learned about it. “Well, I mean, it is fucked up. But… Just like you are doing what you have to do in order to survive here, I’m doing the same thing. I’m surviving.”  
Olivia was nodding, like she was trying to understand. It was a hard thing to grasp, Tulip supposed. So she patted Oliva on the shoulder, reminding her that she should probably go find that lemonade.

__

It was great to be out of the Sanctuary again, but even the cozy little house started to get stuffy as Tulip sat alone in the dining room.  
She stepped outside onto the porch, breathing in the freshness of the Virginian air. Every time you stepped outside at the Sanctuary, all you could smell was death. The fence of roamers was effective, but it did tend to put a damper on the ambience. Here, she couldn’t smell the dead, couldn’t hear them. It felt like it would have before. Normal. Domestic. The lawn was overgrown… Tulip would have a bone to pick with the landscaper later.

  
Arat was standing guard on the stoop – ever the loyal soldier. Tulip wondered how she came to be with the Saviors. What made her so unfailingly loyal to Negan. She had a feeling Arat would never explain it to her. But, still, she couldn’t help but wonder.  
Some of the Alexandrians had gathered in the street outside the house, just staring in horror. Just the mention of Negan’s name could make some of them tuck their tails and hide.

  
“Arat,” Tulip called out. The woman snapped her head around to where Tulip rested her forearms over the porch railing casually.

  
“Everything all right in there?” she said, seriously.

  
She chuckled. The red hand-print on Negan’s face was probably throbbing right now. “Yeah,” she said, “We’re good.”

  
Arat just nodded, turning her attention back outwards. “Hey,” Tulip called out again. Arat seemed annoyed that her duties were being interrupted. “Can I ask you something?”  
Another nod.

  
“What did he do to them?”

  
Arat knew what she meant. Tulip didn’t know much about this group. As a wife, she wasn’t exactly kept in the loop of Negan’s goings-on. She was lucky she got to come on some of these runs at all. All she knew was a few vague details. Rick and his group had broken into one of the Saviors’ outposts and killed some of them. Maybe. She was never really sure what was true. Arat’s eyes were downcast, like she was thinking back to… whatever she was thinking back to. “I think maybe that’s a question you need to ask him yourself.”

Was it that bad? No wonder these people cowered from him and the Saviors.

“Well, thanks,” Tulip muttered. She had wanted to add “for nothing” at the end of that, but with a loaded weapon in Arat’s hand, Tulip didn’t think it would be wise to piss her off. As much as Tulip didn’t want to admit it, that woman was scary as shit.

Tulip headed back inside the suffocating house, ready to ask Negan if he was done playing House with the kid. The sight when she opened the door made her reel back. Negan had stripped down to his thin white t-shirt, his face was clean shaven for the first time Tulip had ever seen, and he held a toddler in his arms. He was bouncing the little girl in a circle as she cooed at him.  
“What in the…” Tulip mumbled. The sight of Negan smiling so broadly at the girl made her chest ache...  
Shaking the thought away, Tulip wished Olivia would slap her for even thinking like that.

“What the hell is happening here?” she stared. Negan was grinning wider than she had ever seen as he brought the girl over to her. She was surprisingly heavy for such a tiny thing.

  
“That’s Judith.” Carl told her. “My sister.”

  
The toddler’s huge blue eyes were mesmerizing, and she had perfect little bleach-blonde curls. “I bet you’re a little heartbreaker, huh?” Tulip couldn’t help but smile, too.

__

Olivia managed to find the lemonade. And for some reason that no one could figure out, Negan decided he would make spaghetti. It didn’t taste half bad. But the rolls made from acorn flour were, for lack of a better word, gross. Olivia had mentioned they were starving in Alexandria. And yet here Negan was, using their scarce resources to prove a point.  
The meal was strange. Tulip chatted a bit with Negan, but Oliva and Carl and even Judith remained silent as if it were their own Last Supper. Tulip supposed you could never be sure with Negan when he might snap.

After their lunch, Tulip stayed back in the kitchen to help Olivia clear the table. She hadn’t seemed to calm down even a little bit since they first arrived. So, Tulip thought she could get some information out of the woman. “Olivia,” she started softly. “Why are you so afraid of him?”

Olivia stared for a moment, like she was considering her words carefully. “What, you’re not?” she asked.

“No!” Tulip scoffed. “No. I’m not afraid of him.”

  
Tulip wanted to ask more, to know more about what Negan had done to this community, but they were interrupted by a visitor. The woman didn’t knock – just opened the front door and walked right in. “Olivia? I was just coming by the check on—” she spotted Tulip and stopped, quipping a judgmental eyebrow. She wore grey head to toe, with her dark hair pulled back tightly. “Um, who the hell are you?”

Tulip gave her a dismissing glance, then turned back to the dish she had been washing. “You first.”

In a not-so-hushed tone, Tulip heard Olivia explain who she was to the woman. “You married that asshole?” she burst out suddenly.

“Nice to meet you too.” Tulip slid the last plate into the metal drying rack. “It’s a long story. One that I really don’t feel like explaining to you right now.”  
Tulip stormed out past the tan-skinned woman without even learning her name.

Sometimes the benefits of being a wife outweighed the bullshit. The private room, the food. They were even permitted to shower on a daily basis. Other times, the bullshit made Tulip want to scream. When the Saviors and even sometimes workers would walk past her and cough, “Whore.” Or when the other men would catcall and harass them like prostitutes walking the streets. No one seemed to understand. No one ever tried to understand.

 

Negan was perched comfortably on a wooden rocking chair with Judith cradled in his arms, who was dozing softly. Carl, on the other chair, was looking uncomfortable as ever.

“Hey, kid.” Tulip said, “Give us a minute?”  
Carl looked like he might pee his pants from the relief as he scurried inside. Tulip took his place in the rocking chair next to Negan. “I like it here.” He grinned when she sat. “I think I might move in.”

“Right,” she half-laughed. But she didn’t want to discuss vacation homes. She sighed. “Negan, what did you do to these people?” He stared at her. “Every time someone even mentions your name they tuck their tails and run the fuck away. Olivia thought you were going to kill her when she hit you. She thought that she was going to die in that moment. I mean, Jesus, I know you’ve done some shit – who hasn’t – but these people are fearful of you like nothing I have ever seen... What the _hell_ did you do?”

His face dropped, his eyes suddenly becoming serious. Tulip needed to be able to trust him… She was just beginning to trust him. To touch him – and to let him touch her. So, Negan told her the truth. He sighed deeply, then began.

He told her everything. Well,  _almost_ everything. He left out the worst of it. Lucille... The blood. Letting those men suffer before he finally killed them. 

It was eerie as Tulip watched him tell the dark story while he absentmindedly stroked the innocent toddler’s hair.

Tulip was about to respond, but Negan wasn’t done.  
“Rick still didn’t get it… So, I gave him an axe, and I gave him a choice. Cut his own son’s arm off or watch the brains of everybody he loved get splattered on the dirt. He was gonna do it. Held that axe up like he was ready to do it. I didn’t let him, obviously – kid still has both his arms, but… Rick would’ve. I saw it in his eyes. He would have cut Carl’s arm off.”

She could picture it… What Negan did. She knew he probably smiled while he did it. Probably made jokes, too. Her mind wandered back to Olivia’s words. _'You’re not?'_ she had said.  
Even knowing what Negan did, and what he would still do to anyone who crossed him… She didn’t feel fear of him. Everyone cowered to him, bowed to him. She wouldn’t. He was a human being. A fucked up, broken human being – just like her.

Negan watched her as she took it in. Watched her eyes widen, her mouth become a thin line. She never turned away from him. She held his stare – like she always did – and she didn’t look at him like a monster, even though he sometimes felt like one. She nodded, slowly.

He knew that if he did tell her everything, if she truly knew what he did and  _how_ he did it, that would change. And so he kept it to himself.

__

Unexpectedly, one of the Alexandrians showed up at the door with an old bottle of whiskey for Negan, asking to speak to him. Tulip recognized him as the guy from the gate during that first visit.  
Well, he certainly cleaned up nicely.

Negan, without really meaning to, kept positioning himself between Tulip and Spencer. Tulip pretended not to be annoyed. Spencer was hot as hell - but making a move like that, to even flirt, would possibly get him killed. It didn’t stop Tulip from smirking playfully at Negan when Spencer would look away.

They drank for a while. Spencer was making small talk. Trying to build some kind of camaraderie with Negan. It didn’t make much sense to Tulip. This guy wasn’t the leader. So who was he to come to Negan and starting making nice?  
From the whiskey, to now dragging a pool table out into the street, the whole situation was completely out of place. Negan knew it too. Tulip saw his eyes turn suspicious with every word.

Spencer racked the balls. Incorrectly, Tulip noticed, but that wasn’t really relevant. Tulip loved billiards. She used to hustle games in college to make a few extra bucks here and there, and she didn’t realize how much she missed that sound of the balls clanking together on the felt table.

“I could never do this with Rick.” Negan was getting ready to break, wearing his jacket casually open in a way that almost made Tulip forget to stare at Spencer’s ass. “He would just be standin’ there scowling. Giving me that annoying side-eye he gives me.”

  
“That’s actually what I came to see you about.” Spencer replied. Tulip scoffed from where she sat on the front steps of Rick’s house. “I wanna talk to you about Rick.”  
It was endlessly amusing to Negan. He chalked the stick, placed the cue on the mark, and lined up his break. “All right. Talk to me, Spencer. Talk to me about Rick!” He struck the cue hard – too hard for any kind of skillful break. It was still a decent shot. Tulip hoped that after the two guys got done comparing their manhoods, she would get to play Negan. It had been a while, but she was confident she could probably run the table on him. He sunk one of the stripes on his break. He was starting to line up his second shot when Spencer began.

“I get what you’re trying to do here. What you’re trying to build. I’m not saying I agree with your methods, but I get it.” Negan sunk the fifteen ball. “You’re building a network, you’re making people contribute for the greater good. It makes sense.” Negan sunk the twelve and moved to the opposite side of the table for his next shot. “But you should know that Rick Grimes has a history of not working well with others.” Negan botched the next shot. He tried to backspin the ball, but he was rushing through the table. He hummed, acknowledging Spencer’s words. “Is that so,” he said, but it wasn’t really a question.

Spencer approached the table now, searching for his shot. “Rick wasn’t the original leader here. My mom was.” He continued. “She was doing a really good job of it. She died. Not long after Rick showed up.” Spencer chalked the stick. “Same with my brother, same with my dad.”

Negan was leaning against the table and the pool stick, making Tulip want to scream. There would probably be a warp in the stick, which would affect his stroke. “So everything was peachy here for what, years?” Negan asked, whiskey in hand. “And then Rick shows up, and suddenly you’re an orphan.”

Good - Negan thought Spencer’s words were bullshit too. They were… It was obvious. Tulip had come to learn that she and Negan were both adept at reading people. For Tulip, the skill stemmed from self-preservation. She wasn’t sure where it had come from for Negan.

“That is the saddest story I’ve ever heard.” Negan told him, subtly sarcastic. Spencer started to line up his shot at a group of solids. “Good thing for you,” Negan continued, “He’s not in charge anymore.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Pretty boy was getting frustrated. “His ego is out of control! He’ll find a way to screw things up. To try and do things his way, try and take over. That’s what he did with my mom, and that’s what he’ll do again.” Spencer’s stroke was too hard, but he somehow managed to sink the three.

  
There was a pause, and he didn’t search for another shot.

“What exactly are you proposing be done about that?” Negan asked him, barely concealing his amusement with the whole situation.

“I am my mother’s son,” Spencer said, coolly. Tulip rolled her eyes, adjusting her dress around her bent knees. “I can be the leader she was. That’s what this place needs, and that’s what you need.”

If it wasn’t the end of the world, Spencer probably could have ended up a politician.

“So I should put you in charge,” Negan smiled. “That’s what you’re saying?”

Spencer looked like an idiot with a smug, better-than-thou smirk. “We’d be much better off.”

“You know, I’m thinkin’, Spencer.” Negan was doing that thing he always did… Pacing, swaying on his feet. “I’m thinkin’ how Rick threatened to kill me – how he clearly hates my guts. But he is out there right now, gathering shit for me, to make sure I don’t hurt any of the fine people that live here.”

 _Well_ , Tulip thought to herself, _Anymore of them, at least_.

“He is swallowing his hate, and gettin’ shit done.” Negan lined up another shot at the table. “That takes guts.” This time he didn’t use enough back spin, so the cue followed the striped ball into the corner pocket on his stroke – a scratch. He didn’t seem to care, though. The change in his demeanor was obvious to Tulip, and she wondered why everyone else couldn’t see it. His posture changed – he leaned back and to his right ever so slightly. His eyes even seemed to change, to darken from emerald to a deep forest green. Tulip thought she should interrupt. She thought she should stop him. But… She didn’t want to. She was enthralled by him in that moment.

“And then there’s you.” Negan was approaching Spencer now. “The guy who waited for Rick to be gone so he could sneak over and talk to me to get me to do his dirty work so he could take Rick’s place!”

  
The crowd that had gathered in the street started to shift uncomfortably on their feet. Tulip stood, but stayed put.

Negan continued. “So I gotta ask! If you wanna take over, why not just kill Rick yourself, and just take over?”

He had become a completely different person from the Negan Tulip knew behind that closed apartment door.

“What? No, _no_ … I didn’t,” Spencer started to protest, but Negan didn’t have the patience. Spencer was staring death in the face and seemed to have no idea.  
“You know what I’m thinkin’? Because I have a guess.” Negan interrupted his stuttering. His voice dropped to a whisper that only Spencer could hear, but his eyes shifted to the crowd for a short moment. I didn’t matter what was said, because it took Negan a half a second to unsheathe his hunting knife and drive it into Spencer’s stomach.

  
People gasped, and the Saviors around them readied their weapons. Negan’s face was a curious combination of a smile and a grimace.  
Negan slid the serrated knife through Spencer’s flesh, opening his insides for the world to see. The man dropped to his knees, holding his own guts in his hands, blood gushing from the wound and from his mouth.

Tulip didn’t look away. But she wasn’t watching Spencer as he gurgled his blood. She was watching Negan who had a ferocity in his eyes she had never seen. Blood had splattered on his pants, his shoes, his face. “How embarrassing!” he yelled, “There they are. They were inside you whole time! You did have guts! I’ve never been so wrong in my whole life!”  
He was staring down the crowd around them. They covered their eyes, turning away from the gruesome scene. One guy even threw up in the grass. But there was one woman – the woman who had challenged Negan that day – who didn’t look away. She stared him down, barely concealing the horror on her face.

The smile on his face was terrifying. And he made a point to smile broadly at Tulip. He knew she would be watching his every move. Of course, he knew. And of course, she was.  
He simply slid the knife back into its sheath and picked up Lucille from where she had been resting against the pool table. “Someone,” he swung the bat around, “Get up here and clean this mess up.”

No one moved. No one drew breath.

“Oh!” Negan exclaimed. He scanned the crowd with Lucille. “Anyone wanna finish the game?”  
Tulip did, but it probably wasn’t a good idea at this point.

“Come on! Anybody? Anybody?” He continued, grinning wildly. “Come on… _I was winning!_ ”

With her eyes glued on Negan, Tulip didn’t see it. Didn’t see the woman with rage burning in her eyes as she pulled a handgun from her pants, raised it, and fired.  
The gunshot stopped all sound for a moment. Then—

“Shit!”

She didn’t hit him.

He was alive. And for some reason she couldn’t place, Tulip almost felt relieved. She hated herself for it.

“What the _fuck_?!”

Arat didn’t hesitate – she knocked the gun from the woman’s hands, pinning her to the ground with a knife to the throat. Tulip found herself inching toward Negan, wishing she had brought a weapon this time as all the Saviors cocked their guns as they waited for someone else in the crowd the pull something.

Negan was going to come unglued. The calm, cool killer that was there moments before was gone and was now replaced by the erratic side of him that didn’t come out often. When it did, shit was going to go down. He was screaming. Frantic.

“Shit! You just—You – _You tried to kill me?!_ ” He couldn’t believe anyone would even make an attempt on his life. His control was slipping. “You shot Lucille!”

  
“She got in the way,” the brave woman ground out as Arat pressed the knife harder into her throat. If she lived through this, Tulip wanted to meet her.

Everyone was perfectly still – waiting for Negan’s next move.

  
His eyes were so wild, so full of rage. Tulip was still moving closer.

“Negan.” She said firmly.

  
He seemed to snap out of his daze, then. He took a steadying breath. Arat and the woman struggled against one another, and the horrified stares from the crowd didn’t fade. Negan then picked up the spent shell from the bullet that had almost killed him.

“What is this?” he held up the shell in his fingers. Tulip narrowed her eyes, searching the small thing for whatever it was Negan saw. “What is this? This little bad boy made from scratch? Look at those crimps… This was homemade.”

A homemade bullet. Turns out it was possible to be pretty and smart at the same time.

“You may be stupid, darlin’, but you showed some real ingenuity here.” His voice was rough and cracking, and his breath was still coming ragged as he spoke. “Arat, move that knife up. Right on that girl’s face.”

  
Even Tulip flinched a little.

“Lucille’s beautiful, smooth surface is never gonna look the same. So _why should yours?!_ ”

“Negan!” Tulip called out again. His anger was rising, threatening to spill over. Too many people could die in its wake. Arat would mutilate this woman if Negan told her to. She couldn’t let that happen.

Negan ignored her and kept speaking to the woman. “Unless… Unless you tell me who made this."

“It was me,” she said proudly. “I made it.” Under any other circumstances, Tulip would have believed her. Maybe Negan would have too.

“See, now I just think you’re lying.” His voice rose once again. “And you lyin’ to me – _now?!_ Such a shame… Arat’s gonna have to cut up that pretty face. One more try.”

  
In a move that took some massive balls, the woman pressed her face into Arat’s knife, letting it dig into her skin. “It was me,” she hissed. Blood ran down her cheek.

“Oh!” Negan yelled. “You are such a badass!” He was impressed by her audacity. And, probably, her rack. Tulip wouldn’t be surprised if he took her back to the Sanctuary. There might be a new wife by the end of the day, if he didn’t kill her.

For the first time, Tulip didn’t see Negan’s next move coming. “Fine,” he laughed. “Have it your way. Arat, kill somebody.”

People started to scream, but Arat made her decision quickly. She drew the pistol from her hip, turned on her heels, and before anyone could blink, Olivia was falling to the ground with a bullet in her face. Some people started to sob.

Tulip glared at Arat. Out of anyone here, the _last_ person who deserved to die was Olivia.

A few Alexandrians tried to move on the Saviors, but were quickly met with gun barrels in their faces. From up the street, Rick came stumbling with a bleeding man on shoulder. Handing the guy off to someone, he jogged straight to Negan. “We had an agreement!” he growled. Negan took a step in front of Tulip, between her and Rick.  
“Rick!” Negan exclaimed, voice cracking. “Look everybody, it’s Rick! Your people are making me lose my voice doin’ all this yelling!”

The look on Rick’s face was priceless when Negan told him what Carl did. What Spencer did. What that woman did.

Rick was shaking – from either fear or anger or both. “Your shit’s waiting for you at the gate. Just go.”

  
Negan, of course, was smiling cockily. “Sure thing, Rick.” He said mockingly. “Right after I find the guy or gal that made this bullet. _Arat?_ ”

  
Arat now raised her gun to shoot another person in the crowd. A young man holding up the bloodied and beaten guy. The two men gripped each other protectively. Lovingly. And Arat was ready to pull the trigger – the destroy that.

“It was me!” someone blurted out. The tanned woman from earlier with Olivia. The one whose name Tulip didn’t care to learn. She was lying, obviously, but every gun was now trained on her.

“No,” a voice sobbed. “It wasn’t.”

The man looked positively ridiculous. His chubby figure coated in sweat, trembling like a chihuahua, topped off with a greasy, black, curly mullet. Both of his hands covered his face to hide his tears. Negan approached him as he uncovered his face. “It was me.” He cried. “It was only me.”

“You?”

  
The guy started to mumble something, but was borderline incoherent. “Shut up.” Negan interrupted. “I believe you.”  
He seemed to retreat into his own mind, then. Negan raised Lucille in front of him with both hands, taking a deep breath. Everyone thought he would use it to kill the bullet-maker. But, he didn’t.

“Lucille,” he breathed, “Give me strength.” A long, exasperated sigh. Tulip tilted her head at the bizarre display. She had thought before that perhaps Lucille wasn’t just a name given to an inanimate object, but now she knew. Lucille was someone to Negan. Someone important. It explained the reverence with which he treated the bat. “I’m gonna be relieving you of your bullet-maker, Rick. That and whatever you left for me at the front gate. And however much you scavenged, it’s not good enough. ‘Cause you’re still in a serious, serious hole after today.”

Just as quickly as it had begun, it was over. “Let’s move out!” Negan commanded, back to the swaggering leader once again.

A few Saviors started to usher the mullet-wearing bullet-maker away, and the woman who had caused it all was screaming. “No! No! Please, just take me!” She was ignored.

As all the Saviors were ushering out and Negan turned for a final word with Rick, Tulip started up the porch steps, where Olivia lay lifeless and bleeding. Carl was there, staring at her as she moved. Tulip knelt on the wood next to Olivia. This brave person who had dared to stand up to the one they all feared, died in an instant for something that she had nothing to do with. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” Tulip whispered. She lifted the glasses from Olivia’s face, and closed the woman’s eyes.


	8. Beware the Patient Woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mildly NSFW!

**A Little Wicked – Valerie Broussard**

 

When Negan found Tulip at his door long after curfew that night, he thought she very well might have been there to kill him after today.

“What the hell are you—”

She didn’t even let him finish the thought, using her mouth on his to push him back inside and shutting the door behind her with her foot.

The sudden change of pace made a rush of lust surge through Negan’s body and straight to where she was now fumbling with the waistband of his boxers. She was usually so timid, so careful. After what happened to her, Negan didn’t blame her if she never wanted to see another dick in her life. But here she was, kissing him with a fever that made his breath hitch in his throat.

She was desperately fumbling, touching him everywhere she could reach her hands, her mouth roving lazily wherever it wanted. Negan gripped her by the shoulders, pushing her back from him. Her groan as her lips left his skin was almost juvenile. They hadn’t fucked – not once. Negan was being careful. He was coaxing her into things as she slowly regained a trust that even allowed him to touch her. “Hey,” he said insistently. “Think about this.”

She was breathing raggedly. The look in her eyes made Negan feel like he would lose himself in his boxer shorts. “Shut up,” she rasped, “and just let me fuck you.”  
Tulip reclaimed his mouth again, and he willingly complied. He would let Tulip take control. He would let her decide what was enough, what was too much.

She shoved him back, and he landed on his back on the bed with a groan.

He lay there, staring. She was starting to tremble, but was desperately shoving down her fear. She wanted this, _needed_ this. Needed him. Thinking back to that smile on his face while he killed Spencer today.The way he took command of everyone around him… It was intoxicating. There was something about him today that caused an ache to form deep inside her. She just need to touch him – feel him. The smug son of a bitch could make her feel things she didn’t think she would ever have the courage to feel again.  
He was, in his own way, just as broken as she was. When he looked at her, it wasn’t pity in his eyes like everyone else before. He looked at her like she was a piece of abstract artwork. If you wanted to truly see its beauty, you had to look for a long time. Take in all the jagged edges, unfinished pieces, the smudges and mistakes.

When she found herself straddling him, pulling off his t-shirt, kissing his chest, tracing his tattoos… She wasn’t afraid. She told Olivia today that she wasn’t afraid of him. She never would be afraid of him again.

Every day this woman managed to amaze him in new ways. The way she took command of her body – and now his – was truly incredible after what she had gone through. She knew what she wanted, and she would take it.

“God,” Negan sighed, staring reverently. “You are fucking incredible.”

She looked up at him through her long, dark hair from where she had been kissing his stomach, a lazy smile on her lips. “I know.”

\--

It was painful. It had been quite a long time since... Then. And she didn’t exactly bring her toys with her when she packed for the apocalypse. Things were certainly a but rusty. But she took her time, easing herself through it. Negan lay on his back, his hands lightly rested on her hips as if he were afraid to touch her too much. Afraid to spook her.  
When the pain finally subsided, Tulip lost control of herself. She rocked her hips so torturously slow, the friction of the slow movements building until her whole body was humming with the feel of him. The sounds he was making only added to the sensation of it… The raspy breaths paired with deep groans when she would lower herself down onto him filled her ears and became the only sound she was capable of hearing in those moments.

Negan almost went over the edge when Tulip bent down and pinned his arms above his head.

“ _Fuck,_ ” he rasped, surprised at himself for letting her do it, for letting her take control over him. This was… This was different, somehow. She needed to be in control.  
Tulip didn’t seem to care whether or not Negan found his release. She coaxed herself through her own, rubbing the spot right above where they were joined with one hand while still holding down his arms with the other until she had herself crying out and collapsing next to him onto the damp silk surface.

“Shit,” she panted. “Holy shit.”

Her head was spinning. Her legs were shaking relentlessly. It was… So much more than she had expected.

Rolling over to face her breathlessly, Negan started kissing her in every nook and cranny he could find. The smoothness of his shaven face felt strange. She wanted the beard back. “You,” he kissed her neck. “Are,” her shoulders. “Fucking,” her breasts. “ _Amazing,_ ” her lips. She chuckled into his mouth.

He dipped his head down to her chest where he licked the sweat that had pooled between her breasts.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she sighed. The look in his eyes practically made her come undone again.

 __

Negan was a morning person.

  
Tulip’s head was foggy, and for a moment she forgot where she was. She had fallen asleep… The wives never stayed the night with Negan. But he didn’t wake her and ask her to leave last night.

  
When she rolled over, the clock on the bedside table read 5:47. Negan was in the bathroom, and he was whistling. The sun wasn’t even up. “Jesus Christ,” she groaned, shoving her face into a pillow. “Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s mornin’,” he mumbled, the words distorted by the toothbrush in his mouth.

The darkness outside and the warmth of the bed coaxed Tulip back to sleep. She didn’t hear Negan getting dressed. She didn’t see him fold her clothes from the night before and set them on the night stand. She didn’t feel his fingers as he brushed stray locks of dark hair away, so he could see her face. She didn’t see the small smile he wore as he donned his leather and carried Lucille out the door, locking it behind him, leaving her to sleep peacefully.

 __

When he returned from his morning rounds a couple hours later, the key jingling in the door startled Tulip awake. She had forgotten where she was, and half expected to hear her coffee pot springing to life as it did every morning when the digital clock on its face hit 8:00. The smell of the powdery instant coffee grounds didn’t come, and instead she was surrounded by a scent that was so foreign, and yet so familiar. He always smelled like leather. But sometimes there were other notes combined with it, depending on the soap or shampoo he happened to use. Today it was leather and patchouli. He must have used the herbal soap that a few of the workers had started selling in the marketplace.  
He didn’t expect her to still be there when he returned, so he started a little when he saw her, still draped in the silken sea of his bed sheets. She held the grey fabric across her bare chest as she sat upright, rubbing her eyes with her free hand. Her head ached in protest.

“You’re still here,” he said. It wasn’t really a question. Negan set Lucille gingerly at the door and shed his leather jacket. He plopped himself onto the lavish couch, facing Tulip as she shook the sleep fog from her mind.

“You didn’t wake me last night.”

He didn’t want to tell her that he had fallen asleep, too, as he lay there watching her chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm with her heartbeat. He should have asked her to leave. It was simply an unspoken rule between he and his wives – they didn’t stay the night. The rules mattered. Or, at least, they were supposed to.

“I fell asleep.” He said simply. It wasn’t a lie.

They were silent for a few long moments, both of their minds wandering back to the previous night. Negan certainly didn’t appreciate the blue-balls, but Tulip had taken a step last night that would likely change everything for her – for them. It had been more than six years since she was attacked, and she had finally forced down her fear and given herself over to pleasure. When she had closed her eyes and thrown her head back, she didn’t see his face from that night. She didn’t feel him all over her, inside of her. He wasn’t gone. He would always be in that dark shadowy part of her mind… But she didn’t dream of him that night.

Tulip started to dress. She had worn baggy night clothes to Negan’s apartment and was cursing herself for it. It was a long walk back to her own room, so it would be next-to-impossible to make it there without being seen by a savior or another one of the girls. She held the sheet up to keep herself covered as she pulled the clothes on. The sweatpants were too big, and she tied the drawstring tightly to keep them from falling as she stood.

She sat across the coffee table from Negan, sinking heavily into the lavish lounge chair. He watched her every step. She tucked her feet underneath her. She thought about the debacle that had unfolded the day prior. Tulip had been on her way to Negan’s apartment to demand answers… But that didn’t exactly work out. She had so many questions, but didn’t expect to get many answers. Why did Negan corner Rick and his people that night? There had to be more to the story that Tulip hadn’t yet figured out. One question stood out, appearing in bold print in her thoughts.

“Who was she?” she blurted.

Negan reeled back with that stupid confused look on his face that he sometimes got. He raised his eyebrows dramatically in silent question.

“Lucille.”

His face suddenly changed, his eyes becoming solemn when before they were bright. Why would she be asking him this?

She kept pushing. “Yesterday in Alexandria. When you asked Lucille to give you strength… You weren’t talking to a baseball bat.”

She was right. He wasn’t. Negan leaned back, crossing his right leg over his left with his arms mirroring the movement. “What are you talkin’ about?” he tried to smile coolly.

“When that woman shot at you yesterday, you almost lost it, Negan. It’s not just a baseball bat… I know that now. So, who was Lucille to you?”

He couldn’t match her stare. He knew his eyes would give too much away. “It is just a bat. That’s it.” He fiddled with his pant leg.

Tulip leaned forward, trying to force him to look her in the eye. “You know my story. I think I deserve to know yours. Is she why you ended up like this?”

His nostrils flared. The heat was beginning to build on his face. Tulip pushed again.

“Your mother? Your wife? Maybe she was your daughter.” She untucked her feet, planting them squarely on the ground beneath her. “What happened to her? Did you kill her, Negan?”

Negan stood suddenly, the force pushing the couch back as he did. “ _That is enough!_ ” He boomed. Tulip jumped at his voice. Negan’s jaw was clenched tightly. “You don’t get to question me.” He growled through his teeth.

 

When Tulip left, she slammed the door so hard that the wall shook, and Lucille fell to the floor with a loud thump.


	9. War is Never Cheap, Dear

**Beat the Devil's Tattoo - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club**

 

Sure enough, as Tulip rounded the grey corridors to her room, Frankie and Tanya were loitering in the hallway. It was a bit early for the two of them to be up and about, but Tulip didn’t particularly care. She just wanted to sneak past them before they realized who she was and where she had been. As she padded down the hall with her bare feet, the two women didn’t care to even glance in her direction.

Tulip slipped around them and made it around the next corner without being seen. The sound was muffled by distance, but one of the girls knocked loudly on a door. Tulip halted, taking a few steps back so she could peer around the corner. Why they would be knocking on the nondescript apartment door of some random Savior first thing in the morning, Tulip couldn’t imagine.

“We can hear the Yars and the Qotile, Eugene.” Tanya said, seeming irritated. Frankie kept looking over her shoulders, checking the hallway. Tulip stayed hidden but kept her ear to the corner to listen.

The door opened, but Tulip couldn’t tell who was inside. A monotone voice spoke with a thick southern accent. “I was given to understand that last night’s shinny was supposed to be a singular incident.”

“He didn’t send us.” Frankie replied. He, meaning Negan…?

Negan had sent a few girls to spend some time with the bullet-maker from Alexandria last night. But this morning’s visit was, apparently, not ordered by Negan.  
With a sigh, Tanya added, “We need your help.”

They both ducked inside the apartment, and the door was closed tightly.

What could they possibly need? The wives were given everything they asked for. Negan always made sure of that. It didn’t make sense. Tulip shook her head and retreated back to her room. She would figure out what they were doing, but only after she had a shower.

___

“Hey, Amber!” the blonde woman’s waist-length hair was swaying as she walked. Tulip, hair still wet from her shower, jogged after her down the dank corridor. Water droplets from her hair left a trail in her wake. Amber stopped, reeling around. Her soft doe eyes were ringed in red, resting on deep purple underneath. “Jesus, Amber.”

“What,” she whined. Even her voice was tired. Amber’s breath hit Tulip in the face first. She smelled like barroom bathroom. Her dress was wrinkled, her hair frizzy. She swayed on her feet a little.

“Are you drunk?” Tulip grabbed Amber’s elbows to hold her steady. Amber refused to meet Tulip’s eyes. “You’re drunk. Jesus, Amber, it’s nine in the morning!”

“What does it matter to you?” Amber slurred.

“Come on. We’re gonna sober you up.” Tulip put her arm around Amber’s delicate frame and led her down the corridor to her room. There was still a half-pot of stale coffee waiting that Tulip hadn’t finished. The hot plate had kept it relatively warm, so Tulip poured a cup and forced it into Amber’s hand.

“I’m fine!” Amber protested, coffee sloshing dangerously. Tulip made her sit at the edge of her bed and sip the coffee, to help absorb the alcohol.

“When was the last time you slept?”

Amber’s eyes were glazed over, foggy. She was falling apart. It reminded Tulip of her own state after that night all those years ago. Amber was about the same age as Tulip was at that time, too. Tulip knew what Amber was going through, but wasn’t sure why… Amber didn’t answer. “What’s going on with you, girl?” Tulip fought to keep eye contact with her wandering eyes.

“We’re just slaves,” Amber mumbled, tears starting to form. A sob bubbled up from her throat.

“Slaves? Amber, we’re not…”

Tulip realized then that her own experience as a wife to Negan had likely been very different from that of the others. What happened when one of them got called to Negan’s room? Did they talk? Or was it just about the fucking? Tulip didn’t know, couldn’t know. Last night had not been about the sex for her. It had been something different – something real. What did it feel like for Amber or Brandi or Tanya or the rest of them?

“Did he hurt you?”

Amber laughed humorlessly. “No,” she mumbled. “Not physically, at least.”

Tulip had desperately hoped that’s what she was going to say. Still, seeing Amber like this killed her. She saw herself in Amber in many ways. She had once been meek and quiet – small, too. Not much muscle. After she was attacked, Tulip forced herself to become someone different. Someone stronger. Somehow, Amber remained who she was. She kept her air of innocence and kindness about her. Tulip sometimes wished she could be kind like her friend. But this world did not offer much opportunity for kindness.

Tulip held Amber’s shoulders. “We’re doing what we have to do to survive. No matter what anyone says about you or about us, we are not weak. You are not weak, Amber. You are not a slave. The rest of them don’t realize how strong you have to be to be where we are.”

Amber still wouldn’t look at Tulip, and the tears were now spilling onto her cheeks. “I didn’t want this…” She gasped. A tear fell into the coffee cup.

“Look at me, Amber.”

She finally looked up.

  
Tulip brushed the fair hair from Amber’s face. “None of us ever thought we would end up here. I have been fighting since the start, and I know you have too. You think I expected to end up in a situation like this? Hell no I didn’t – but I’m here. And so are you. You’re here because you had a duty to protect your mom. She is alive because of you, Amber. You did that. You have saved people. You saved me with that little act of kindness when I first got here. You are not nothing. You might not carry a gun, but you are a fighter – just like the rest of them. No one can take that away from you. Especially not Negan.”

A sniffle came out of her… But then a small, pained smile.

“I saw that,” Tulip smiled too. Amber took a long dreg of the lukewarm coffee resting in her hand. Tulip held her free hand tightly. She seemed so fragile, so delicate. Amber wasn’t made for the end of the world. She was surviving, but she wasn’t living. “You’re going to be okay, right?”

Amber gave a single nod, but she wasn’t sure if she really meant it. Tulip wasn’t sure, either.

___

Tulip had been making her way to the commissary to get another bottle of shampoo when she heard a completely obnoxious sound.

She stopped in the middle of the hall to listen. It was one of the lower floors – closer to the Workers’ quarters. Not many Saviors worked on the level. But there was noise, now. It was… Music? Horribly cheerful and upbeat music.

“What the fuck?” she muttered, following the sound through the corridors. As she got closer, it got louder, and the lyrics became clearer.

_We’re on Easy Street…_   
_And it feels so sweet…_   
_And the world is but a treat when you’re on Easy Street!_

At an unoccupied juncture of two halls, where there was nothing but storage closets, there was a stereo relentlessly screaming the painfully cheerful song.

_And we’re breakin’ out the good champagne…_   
_Sittin’ pretty on a gravy train…_

Tulip scrambled for the Stop button on the player. She debated just smashing the God damned thing.

 _Click!_ Finally the sound stopped, and the tape loader swung out. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered to herself. “Who the hell—”

She stopped. There was a rustle behind her, but no one there. “Hello?” she called out. “Negan, if you’re trying to be funny, you’re not doing a very good job!”

Another rustle. From behind one of the doors. She was getting annoyed. “All right, asshole!”

Silence followed. She went to the closest door to her and tried the knob. Locked. There was definitely a noise in there.

“Hello?” she said into the door. A pause. She was about to walk away, discounting the sound as a rat or mouse stuck in a broom closet, when a dry cough sounded in reply. She jiggled the knob again. “Hey! Open the door!”

Another wheezing cough.  
Hanging on the wall near the door was an old, rusty fire-extinguisher. She grabbed it from its hook and gripped it tightly, praying she wouldn’t need a tetanus shot after this. She swung the butt of the red can into the door. It was loud - too loud.

Quickly, she popped the tape back into the music player, and the horribly cheerful tone started up again. “Get away from the door,” she said, quietly enough for only whoever was in the closet to hear her. She started swinging the fire-extinguisher again, harder each time. Finally, as her triceps started to ache from the effort, the door’s latch cracked and swung open.

The smell hit her first. Puke and shit and sweat and every other possible smell wafted from the small room. Cowering in a corner, next to a pile of his own vomit, was a man. He was shivering. Butt naked, trying to shield himself from the light of the hall.

“Holy shit.”

She didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Negan… He _wouldn’t_.

“Who did this to you?” she whispered. He could barely look at her. He was probably dehydrated. And practically starving.

The man flicked his long greasy hair from his face, allowing Tulip to see his eyes. To recognize him. He was the worker brought along to Alexandria that day… He was from Alexandria. Taken the night Negan met them. That had been months ago. Tulip remembered the commotion after that first meeting. He was being starved... Tortured.  
This was wrong… It was all wrong. Negan would never…

But he had. This man – what was left of him – was proof of that. The Saviors forced him to live like this. To work for them. And to come back and sleep in a pile of his own shit.  
Tulip had seen the brutality. She had seen what Negan could do, had heard from his own lips the horrors he inflicted onto those people. But this… This was too much, even for him.

 

She would likely be killed for it, but she didn’t hesitate. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

She had to sneak through the commissary to find some clothes that might fit the prisoner. What was his name? Rick had said it that day…

It didn’t matter. Tulip knew they would both likely die if someone caught on. She snatched a couple bottles of water on her way.

She let the man dress and hide his face under a baseball cap, and down the first bottle of water. It would at least allow him to speak. “Why the hell are you helping me,” he managed to growl. Not quite a question, or even a sentence.

She wanted to be pissed off. Who the hell was he to question the woman saving his life? “Next time someone is saving your life, it’s best not to complain.”

She stuck her head out the door. The hall was clear. “Come on. We have to get to the ground floor. Keep your feet light and your mouth shut.”

"Fuck!" She cursed internally. What the hell was she doing? Would she just… Let him go? Leave with him? If she didn’t leave, it wouldn’t take long for Negan to figure out how the prisoner escaped.

She could cross that bridge when she came to it. Future problems.

She guided the man through the halls as quietly as she could, down stairwells, and closer to danger. There were too many people on the ground floor. On the third landing from the bottom, footsteps started to approach. They were stuck…

“Play along,” Tulip muttered. She snatched the water bottle from the man, dumping its contents on her heels just as two of the Saviors were ascending the stairs.  
“Are you shitting me?” Tulip yelled petulantly. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

The man stared through his hair, confused.

“Fine, _Rain Man_. I’m reporting you to Negan.” The Saviors passed without more than a glance at her. She made sure to keep up the act until they were long past. “He certainly hates for his wives to be mistreated.”

She rolled her eyes at herself, hating the words that came out of her mouth, even if it was an act.

There was a back door that they could use, allowing them to avoid cutting through the common area. From the time Tulip spent lounging on the rear balcony, away from the stench of the roamers, she knew there were usually minimal patrols. She just hoped they were timing it well enough. Of course, luck usually wasn’t in the cards for Tulip.

The bright sun stung her eyes as she swung the back-entrance door open. The courtyard seemed empty, but Tulip still tried to walk on her toes to quiet the clacking of her heels. She noticed the prisoner’s eyes as his glazy stare landing on the line of motorcycles. “You ride?” she asked quietly. She almost collapsed with relief when he nodded once. She wouldn’t have to find him a car.

“What the hell?” A voice suddenly approached. The prisoner snatched up an old pipe to use as a weapon.

“Ma’am?”

It was a savior, Joseph. He was halfway through a sandwich.

He dropped his meal when he noticed the prisoner near the line of bikes, gripping the scrap of metal pipe. “Woah,” he breathed, putting his hands up. “Woah!”

“Joey,” Tulip tried to speak, to get his attention. She had to do something… Joey saw her helping this man. He would surely tell Negan. And she would surely be dead.

The prisoner was inching toward Joey now. “It’s cool, I swear!” he was babbling. How this man ever became a Savior, Tulip couldn’t understand. “Buddy, you can walk right out that back gate there and I won’t say anything to anybody. I’m supposed to be there now, but—Listen, I’m… I’m just trying to get by, just like you!”

“Joey, please, let me—”

The prisoner cut her off, striking Joey as hard as he could with the metal pipe.

“No!” Tulip lunged for him, but it was too late. Joey’s head was practically a pulp after three hard swings of the pipe.

When the prisoner was sure Joey was dead, he dropped the pipe with a loud rattle.

“What the shit,” Tulip whispered, bringing her hands to grip her hair at the roots. “What did you do!?”

The prisoner was ignoring her, and snatched Joey’s gun from where it had been sitting at the back of his belt. Someone else came running, then, but he wasn’t a Savior. “Daryl,” the long-haired newcomer said to the prisoner. Tulip didn't particularly care who he was, as long as they both got the hell out of the Sanctuary before someone raised an alarm.

“Come on,” Daryl growled, almost incoherently. “I got the keys.” The other man gave a confused glance at Tulip, but followed Daryl to the motorcycle. Tulip stood over the growing pool of blood gushing from Joey’s head. Not only had she helped the prisoner escape, but now a Savior was dead. There was no way she was going to survive this.

“He’s going to kill me,” she whispered to herself.

The bike started behind her. “Hey!” Daryl yelled. “You comin’?”

If she left with him, no matter where she went, Negan would find her. More people would likely die as he searched for her, as he demanded answers from people who could not give them. No matter where she went, she would have to face this – to face him. She closed her eyes for a moment that seemed much too long for the present circumstances and shook her head once.

Daryl nodded, with genuine appreciation flashing across his rough features. “Rick'll know what you did.”

By the time Rick got here, it would be too late for her.


	10. Each Shade From a Different Person's Head

**Mad Hatter – Melanie Martinez**

 

She heard the commotion from the other side of the sanctuary. There was going to be another burning. Negan had found who let the prisoner out.

 _Obviously not_ , Tulip thought to herself. He was probably lying… Trying to draw out the real culprit. He wouldn’t burn someone for no reason. Or so she thought. There were delicate hurried footsteps outside of her apartment. Amber barged in breathlessly without so much as a hint of a knock.

She was ragged, panicked. Tulip was instantly up and by her side. “What is it?” she demanded.

Amber swallowed hard before she could get the words out. “Dr. Carson…” she heaved. She had been running to get here. “He’s gonna burn Dr. Carson.”

Dr. Carson? Why would he be taking the fall for this?

  
Thank God Tulip had worn flats that day, because the next moment she was sprinting off to the factory floor. She almost slipped and ate dirt a few times as she rounded corners as fast as she could. He would kill her when she confessed, but she couldn’t let an innocent man take the fall for what she had done. She ran as fast as she could, skipping three or four steps at a time as she made her way down.

When she could see him, she slowed to a casual pace, trying and failing to control her ragged breath. Carson was a bumbling mess, tears and snot coating his face as Negan held the red-hot iron inches from him. Carson was begging. “I’m sorry, sir…” he sobbed, “I’m so sorry… Please… Please don’t burn me. I did it! I confess! It was me…”

Negan lifted the iron away with a grin. “See?” he teased. “That wasn’t so bad. All you had to do was confess.” He gave the iron back to Dwight. Tulip descended another landing. Negan made a casual glance up at her, a smile still plastered on his face. She locked eyes with him, leveling that belittling stare he had perfected.

She saw his eyes shift back to Dr. Carson for a moment, then back to her.

“Negan.” She warned.

She knew, by the look in his eyes. He knew what she did. He knew Carson had nothing to do with it. For a split second, there was nothing in his eyes.  
  
But then he was back. He flashed his teeth at Tulip, and winked. The smug bastard winked before gripping the back of Carson’s coat and throwing him with all force into the burning furnace.

He didn’t even get a chance to scream.

No no _no_!

Carson struggled against Negan for a few miserable moments, screaming in agony as the furnace flames licked and ripped at his skin, tearing him apart much like the roamers would do if they got a hold of him. To be torn apart – whether by dead ones or by flame – was a horrible way to die.

“No!” She screamed, without thinking.

Carson stopped squirming.

The uncomfortable shuffling from the crowd stopped, their heads snapping to her.

She descended the last flight of stairs smoothly.

Negan released his hold on Carson’s lifeless body, and turned to her. “What was that?” he practically whispered.

Tears were welling up in Tulip’s eyes. Another life to add onto her conscience. A doctor. Someone innocent – who helped people in need.

“What did you do,” she growled. The crowd parted, giving her a path to Negan, and Negan to her.

He was grinning. She wanted to rip the grin from his lips with her bare hands.  
Another beat went by, and she lunged. She closed the gap between them in a few strides. Tulip gripped him by his leather collar. She struck him as hard as she could. Everything she thought she understood about him was falling away. He killed an innocent man. He knew Carson was innocent, and killed him anyway. Killed him cruelly. He had been so gentle with her, so loving. And she believed him. She convinced herself it was genuine. She yelled with a force - a force that had been building up since her life fell apart. 

He made her think she could love him.

  
She was screaming as two burly Saviors pulled her off of him.

“You crazy son of a bitch!” she bellowed. Negan was adjusting his collar, still smiling a murderous smile.

She was going to die now. She knew it. She knew it the moment Daryl drove away on that bike. In her rage, she felt herself begin to smile, too. She thought she might have finally been losing it.

She embraced her fate, and was now resigned to wait for the sweet moment of release. Let Negan come. Tulip was glad that she, at least, was able to inflict a blow before she met her end. She shattered Negan’s control on himself and his people. She couldn’t wait to see his face when he came to kill her. She was ready for him.

___

The Saviors tossed her into the empty broom closet Daryl had been kept in. They hadn’t bothered to clean it. But in the two days since Daryl had escaped, they made sure to fix the door’s latch.

The room stunk of everything foul, and Tulip clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from throwing up at the warm ripeness of the stench. She perched herself against the door where she could get the most fresh air.

She couldn’t imagine having to live in this hell.

Good thing she wouldn’t make it to see the morning.

Once her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, she noticed something near the back corner of the small closet. She tried to avoid any unknown bodily fluids staining the concrete as she reached for it, peeling the flat object from the floor. From the feel of it, she could tell it was a Polaroid photo.

Her eyes had not yet adjusted enough to make out what was in the photo. She turned, holding the Polaroid to the crack of light shining from underneath the closet door.

She saw the red.

There was the body of man lying face down on the dirt.

Where his head should have been was nothing more than a mangled pile of blood and grey-matter.

Tulip dropped the photo.

This… _This_ is what Negan had done to Rick’s people. What he would soon do to her.

From the smell or the photo - she couldn’t tell - Tulip turned, wrenching the contents of her stomach onto the floor. The vomit burned her nose and made her eyes water as her throat clenched and unclenched.

Whatever she had pictured in her mind as Negan told her what he had done… That was not this. She thought she knew the brutality, but quickly realized that no matter how much she thought she knew, there was more. There was always more with Negan. He could always take it one step further, hurt you another time over. This man was broken and bleeding and using his own pain as an excuse to cause it everywhere he went. It was toxic. He was toxic.

He would destroy everything in his wake, Tulip included.

__

It could have been a few hours or days later, but eventually three more Saviors came to escort Tulip to her death.

It was time to face the executioner.

Tulip was weak, but she forced herself to walk in pace with the men dragging her. They took her up the stairs rather than down. By the time they reached the top floor, Tulip’s legs were aching and her breath was coming quick and ragged.

She knew which door they were going to before she took her first step in that direction.

At his door, one of the Saviors knocked firmly three times. It opened without a sound. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t see around the door, but—  
Someone shoved her harshly, and she stumbled through the door before it was shut tightly behind her. The room seemed different from when she had spent the night here barely two days ago.

There he was, standing silently, watching her. With a sigh, he ran his hand over his face. The salt and pepper scruff was slowly starting to come back in. His jacket was open, and the white shirt he wore underneath was wrinkled, like he had picked it up off the floor and put it on. There was a strange look in his eyes – one she had never seen. Perhaps it was the same look he wore right before he turned that innocent man’s skull to soup.

She faced him down.

Here it comes.

She was ready.


	11. We've Become Echoes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ!  
> I need to include a bit of a disclaimer before this chapter. This is, by no means, meant to be taken as relationship advice. My character's actions are to show that she is flawed - not to set an example. If you find yourself in a toxic situation with your significant other, please feel free to reach out to me if you need someone to talk to.
> 
> This chapter will include depictions of physical abuse.

**Silhouette - Aquilo**

 

“If you’re going to kill me, please just get it over with.”

With a fire in his eyes Negan lunged, gripping Tulip’s throat and slamming her against the bookshelf at the rear of his room. His face was contorted into a horrible scowl in his rage – he bared his teeth, practically growling like a hungry bobcat.

Her back ached with the impact as it forced even more air out of her lungs as he began to squeeze.

She finally saw it, then. The bloodlust. Negan’s need for control, for complete and utter submission. The rage that boiled from him when his control slipped… That was truly something to fear.

The vision of him began to fade away. Black spots began to cloud her vision as her mind’s functions began to shut down as they gasped for oxygen. Tulip thought she had reconciled with her imminent death, but—

She began to struggle. She grasped at Negan’s arms, willing her fingers to tear through leather.

She didn’t want to die.

His eyes so intensely held her own.

He was going to kill her.

All this time – all this pain… She thought she was ready.

She struggled against him until her arms became too weak.

As Negan towered over her and dug his nails into her skin, what he saw in her bloodshot eyes stopped him.

There was nothing.

No fear like he always saw in his wives’ eyes, no hatred like he saw in Rick’s. Absolutely nothing. It was then that Negan realized this woman’s heart was just as empty as his own. She was the person who might be the only one left in the world who could truly understand him, and here he was, choking the life from her with his bare hands.  
He let go of her neck and stepped back, curling his hands into fists.

Tulip’s lungs practically sang as she took a gasping breath, her legs collapsing beneath her.  
She gasped over and over again, feeling the heat of the air in her lungs, the rapid fluttering of her heart.

She was alive. She was alive.

Alive.

 

She didn’t know how long she sat there, the hard shelves digging into her back, just feeling the air fill and leave her lungs over and over again.

Negan never moved.

Tulip pushed herself to her feet, knocking over the few books resting on the shelves. She tried to speak firmly, but it came out as a wheeze. “Strangulation too clean for you?”

Negan was silent. He had no words. No witty remark. He had no defense against the onslaught of confusion that sprung from looking into this woman’s eyes. “You’re not afraid of me,” he said, his voice no more than a gruff whisper. Neither could tell if it was a question.

Her voice was so weak when she meant for it to be strong. “Should I be?”

Negan’s frustration began to grow again. “You bet your sweet ass you should be. You should be on your knees right now like everyone else.”

“Do you want to know why, Negan?” The words strained her throat, but she needed to say it. “Do you want to know why I don’t kneel to you?”

His voice said nothing, but his eyes said yes.

“I don’t kneel to you because you are nothing more than a power-hungry psycho.”

Negan tried to interject, but she continued breathlessly, stepping closer to him with each sentence. She was using every bit of her willpower not to pass out.  
“You use your strength and that god-dammed bat of yours to scare everyone into submission. You use violence and a potty mouth to assert your dominance. Your wives are not for your pleasure. No, your wives are a show.” A dry cough. Tulip’s thoughts fluttered back to Amber’s drunken breakdown. The sorrow in her eyes. “Those women, faithfully serving you despite the things you have done to them and the people they love shows everyone that you simply take what you want.”

She didn’t care what she said now. He had been inches from ending her life, but he had stopped. She knew that wouldn’t happen again. Next time, he would finish it. Tulip kept pushing, as best she could without falling over.

“My people respect me and what I have built here!” He growled, challenging her. He loomed over her, holding that intense eye contact she had come to know – it is still nothing more than a fear tactic. To show her how powerful he is.

“Don’t you get it? Don’t you see why they follow you?”

Silence. But she could feel the rage boiling from him.

“Respect is not the same as fear! Not a single person here respects you! They work for you and they deal with the shit you put them through so they have a roof over their heads and food in their bellies! You are not a leader. You have no idea what it means to be someone worth respecting."

They were inches from each other now. She stared up at him, matching his eyes.  
“So if you’re going to bash my brains in, go ahead. Strangle me. Slit my throat. Do what you gotta do, Negan. It doesn’t change a thing. You will still be a tyrant. You will still be feared and never respected. And most of all, you will still be _alone._ ”

Tulip slipped past him and out the door, slamming the door as hard as she could muster. But she didn’t walk away. She leaned against the door to calm her shaking knees. She thought she was going to die in that moment.

Tulip always thought that when the time came, she would embrace death. She thought she would sprint down that long tunnel to whatever awaited her in the next life.  
But it was in that moment with Negan’s fingers tightening around her throat that she finally realized that she didn’t want to die. Maybe she did, when she felt like nothing but the _raped girl_. Tulip wasn’t made for the way it was before. But she was made for the end of the world. She could become a leader, a soldier, and even a lover in this world. Tulip decided in that moment that she would not only survive, but _live_. She wanted to see where the road would take her. 

She thought she should try to escape, then. Someone would catch her before she made it out. She didn't think she wanted to escape. Because when she looked to the future she might have at the Sanctuary, he was there, guiding her. 

The things he did and would still do weighed on her mind. 

She would do everything in her power to stop things like that from happening again. She would show him that fear is not what makes a leader. 

She had to face him.

__

A few minutes went by – or maybe it was a few hours. Tulip couldn’t tell. She gathered what was left of her courage, and opened the door. Negan was standing right where she left him, head down. It was the first time she had ever seen him look weak.

She stepped inside and locked the door behind her. The click of the deadbolt seemed to startle Negan. He slowly turned to her. His eyes were bloodshot. He was shaking. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could make a sound, Tulip closed the distance between them and pressed her mouth to his.

He had almost taken her life with his bare hands and yet… Yet she wanted him. Needed him. She needed him like she needed the air he had robbed her of. He had made her forget – if only for a few moments – what had happened to her. He made her feel whole. He filled the holes that were created when she was so young. He was broken, and so was she.

Negan didn’t move while she kissed him.

Tulip pulled away. He wouldn’t look her in the eye. He almost killed her for Christ’s sake. He couldn’t, _he won’t…_

“Look at me, God dammit.” She whispered hoarsely.

He looked. He looked at the bruises blooming on her perfect throat - bruises that _he_ put there. Negan lifted his hand slowly like she was a deer he didn’t want to spook. His breath was ragged. When he touched her, she flinched. Tulip held herself together, but the memories of that night were stirring up all over again. That asshole’s grubby sweaty hands on her neck, her breasts, everywhere as she squirmed and screamed and cried out for help, but no one came. No one ever came. _He’s dead_ , she told herself silently. _He’s long dead. You are not that girl anymore._

Negan had promised her that he would never hurt her. And yet he was staring at bruises in the shape of his own fingers on her neck.

Negan dropped to his knees.

“Tulip, I,” he whispered.

“Stop.” She told him. “Stop.” Tulip knelt before him.

He finally met her eyes. He looked terrified. But there was a fire in her eyes that Negan had always seen. It had been dormant, hiding. Every once in a while, when she was outside the walls, or gripping his hair in the throes of her pleasure, he saw a flicker of that fire. But now as she stared at him it was more than just an ember. It was burning bright and strong and insistent. He wanted to tell her he would never hurt her… He wanted to tell her he loved her. That she made him feel alive for the first time in a long time. He wanted to tell her so much, but the words wouldn’t come.

“Hey,” she said. She was so soft, and yet so strong. She saw the words he wanted to say waiting behind his eyes. “I know.” She told him.

Negan’s breath hitched. He stared at her, and somehow, amidst the smoldering shit-fire around them, she smiled.

Here they were, eye-to-eye, knee-to-knee.

Equals.

 

“Are you going to keep staring or fucking kiss me already?”

__

Until the bruises faded, Tulip wore Negan’s red scarf to cover the marks.

She didn’t blame him for what he did. Just as he didn’t blame her for attacking him. He was broken – they both were. It was screwed up, and probably toxic, but they were figuring out how to heal together.

Negan taught Tulip to love and to trust.

  
Tulip taught Negan to soften his edges.

Broken, but broken together. It seemed better that way. It always did.


	12. In All Chaos There is Calculation

**Glory and Gore - Lorde**

Amber had wept tears of joy when Tulip had gone to see her that next morning. Tulip didn’t knock at her apartment door. She just walked in. Amber was curled up in an armchair, loose grey sweatpants draped over her delicate frame. Her long blonde hair was twisted up into a bun on the top of her head. She seemed to be enamored with the book in her lap. She barely heard Tulip come in. When she did, Amber screamed, tossing the paperback to the floor and lunging at Tulip. Amber pulled her into an embrace much tighter than the girl’s lack of muscle should have allowed.

“You’re alive!” she cried into Tulip’s shoulder, squeezing tighter around her middle. “Oh God, I thought you were dead.”

Tulip shifted a little uncomfortably. Amber’s face was buried into the red scarf as she started to cry, and for a moment Tulip feared she might tear it off in her excitement.

She had decided, just a few moments before she opened the apartment door, that she would leave that part out of the story of how she escaped with her life.  
It took a few days for the shock of what had happened to fade. Everyone had expected Tulip to show up on the fence, her skin grey and wan, dark hair falling out by the roots. They expected to see her flowing dress weighed down by the bile and fluids of death. They expected her to growl and reach for a meal she would never reach.

The stares as she first appeared in the common area on the ground floor were nothing short of shocked and frankly, scared. People whispered. Pointed. Gawked. Some voiced their confusion outright. “She’s still alive?” they mumbled as she passed them.

There were more burnings that week than usual. Negan was afraid the people would think he was going soft. He burnt both sides of one man’s face, and he shit himself in the chair. Tulip kept her opinions to herself this time.

__

Tulip’s eyes had begun to itch and her nose was running constantly, so she was hoping to find some allergy meds from someone downstairs. Randy, a woman who had worked her way to the top of Sanctuary trading game, usually had just about anything you could ask for. There was a long line at her table of people hoping to trade points or their belongings for various necessities that only Randy could provide. She had quite the monopoly on over-the-counter medications.

Not wanting to draw too much attention to herself, Tulip took a spot at the back of the line.

She noticed an unfamiliar sight ahead of her a few spaces. It was a tall, burly man donning a greasy mullet haircut. It was the bullet-maker from Alexandria – roaming free to do as he wished. Tulip was impressed by Negan’s trust in the man. Although he seemed too much of a coward to really be a substantial threat to the Sanctuary.

The bullet-maker seemed frustrated as he left the slow-moving line and stood at the table in front of Randy. She was trying to get another of the workers to play a game of poker. The workers, as Tulip later discovered, wagered their points when they gambled. The bullet-maker interrupted the conversation. “I’d like a single blister-pack of your most extra strength cold capsule.” He said matter-of-factly.

Randy looked at him incredulously. She picked up the fly swatter next to her and used it to gesture. “Hey! The line’s a line! What, they don’t have ‘em where you come from? You don’t know how they work?”

“No, I am familiar—”

“Get in it, prick!”

Tulip breathed a laugh to herself. Randy was not a woman to take shit from anyone. The bullet-maker turned, defeated, and started to return to his spot in the line. He stopped in his tracks after a few steps. His face was contorted into an unnatural grimace. He turned on his heels again, and back to the front of the line he went. He pushed a woman out of the way to get there.

“What’s your number,” he droned to Randy.

“What’s yours?” she retorted sarcastically.

He glanced down at Randy’s binder. “Sixteen. All right, number sixteen. My name is Doctor Eugene Porter,” he put extra emphasis on the word ‘doctor.’ “I have recently been appointed to the newly created post of chief engineer of this facility. I report directly to Negan, which means you report directly to my ass.”

Randy paused, almost in a silent fear. “The cold capsules, now.” Eugene growled.

“I-I didn’t know. We just… We get so many new faces…” He voiced trailed off. She rummaged through her basket of medicine a bit, and found what Eugene seemed to be looking for. He snatched the pack of pills from her hand, and angrily scrawled his name in the binder. Before walking away, he snatched up a metal bedpan and Randy’s fly swatter. “I want this too,” he mumbled. “And this.” From a pile of fabric and yarn he took a small stuffed animal. “I’m not sure what you call this… But I’m gonna call it a grembly-gunk.”

  
Then, as a last attempt to assert some kind of clumsy dominance, Eugene emptied Randy’s basket of medicine into his bedpan before storming off.

A few minutes later, when Tulip finally reached the front of the line, Randy almost jumped out of her folding chair.

“Hey, Randy.” Tulip chuckled at the woman’s wide eyes.

“Boy, am I glad to see your skinny ass. Come here,” Standing over the table, Tulip carefully embraced her. “Gave me quite the damn scare.” She said, her rough voice carrying over the hum of the room.

Tulip scoffed. “Me too,” She had wanted to say something along the lines of, ‘You have no idea,’ but thought better of it.

“What can I get ya, babe? Anything you need, on the house.” Her voice dropped to a low mumble. “We need more people like you around here.”

“I don’t suppose you have any antihistamines?”

Randy shook the empty basket. “Sorry, babe. Dr. Mullet snatched all my meds. Damn shame. Those were my main money-maker too.”

Tulip glanced quickly over her shoulders before grabbing Randy’s binder from her. Next to her number, 16, Tulip added enough points to buy her fresh vegetables for a few days, and then some. She signed it with a cursive ‘N.’ Randy was shocked at her bravery. “What are you—”

“If anyone asks, send them to me. I’ll take care of Negan.” She winked. Randy quipped an eyebrow at her. Tulip was already walking away and Randy mouthed a thank you, her face bright.

__

Dr. Mullet, as Randy so lovingly called him, lived on the same floor as Tulip. If there were allergy meds in that basket, he would have them. And so Tulip decided to pay the doctor a house call.

Her fist on his door – the same one Frankie and Tanya had visited – matched the rhythmic stomp of her heels. She could hear movement on the other side of the door. It was hurried and frantic, like he was trying desperately to hide something before he opened the door.

When the deadbolt did finally unlock, Eugene was breathless. There was a pair of protective eyeglasses pushed up on his head, making the short front hairs of the mullet stand on end. “What can I do for you, missy?” he droned. His accent wasn’t the sweet charming one of most southerners. It was deep and monotone – and he liked to unnecessarily use multi-syllable words.

“Those meds you took from Randy?” Tulip crossed her arms, “I need some.”

He glanced behind him, seeming confused. On the counter at the rear of the room was two peaches, sliced in half and the pits removed. Next to them, a pair of yellow rubber gloves and a measuring beaker. The college memories – ones that didn’t involve misplaced trust and a hard dorm room bed – started to flood Tulip’s mind. Eugene noticed Tulip’s eyes and moved to block her view with himself and the door. “Said meds, as they are currently in my possession, belong to me. Number sixteen was simply a delivery service.”

“Are you sick?” she asked matter-of-factly.

“I-I, Uh… My general health is none of your concern, Ma’am and I would appreciate it if you would promptly scurry on out of here.”

“You asked for extra-strength cold capsules.” She reminded him. “You don’t look sick.”

“Ma’am I do think I recall asking you to politel—”

Tulip cut him off, pushing past him and into the small studio apartment. There on the dinette table was another mixing beaker, the package of cold capsules, and a mortar and pestle. Inside the marble bowl was the peach pits, ready to be ground to a powder. Sprawled on the bed was the bedpan and the remaining meds, the fly swatter, and Eugene’s grembly-gunk.

Eugene was stunned speechless and stared at Tulip in a dumb stupor. She picked through the foil packs and bottles of pills. She found one foil pack with the words she was looking for printed on the back. She popped one out and swallowed it with a dry gulp before stuffing the remaining pills in the packet into her bra. “You know,” she turned to Eugene, satisfied that she found the pills she needed. “I was a bio-chem major in college.” She wasn’t lying. If she had finished, she might have had a bright future as a lab tech or a researcher. But she hadn’t finished. It didn’t matter much if she did or didn’t graduate, anyway. The world ended. All those BA’s and BS’s and Master’s degrees don’t mean shit in the end of the world.

Eugene was shifting uncomfortably. He was always shifting uncomfortably. “While that is admirable, I hardly think that an undergraduate level biochemistry degree could put you on the same level intellectually as yours truly. I have PHD’s microbiology, immunology, and biochemistry. I was, as you likely already have heard, an integral member of the Human Genome Project, or HGP for short.”

Tulip turned squarely to him, trying her best to imitate that stare that Negan always used to get what he wanted. She was too short to intimidate most people, but Eugene was quivering. “I might not have doctorate, but I do have a basic understanding of biochemistry.” She stepped toward him, and he stepped back. “And from that so very basic knowledge, I remember one fact in particular. Peach pits – like the ones you’ve got behind you – contain a compound that can act like cyanide in the human body.”  
Eugene was terrified now. She had caught him in the act.

“And you, Eugene, are not sick. So why else would you need extra strength cold medicine and peach pits and all that fancy equipment you’ve got hiding behind you, other than to manufacture a homemade poison?”

He hadn’t tried to be very discrete, but then again probably didn’t expect and intrusion into his new apartment.

Eugene was trying to use his body to block Tulip’s view of the table with the peach pits and the beaker, as if keeping them out of her view would make them spontaneously cease to exist. “I-I-I don’t seem to understand the question…” he trailed off, watching frantically in every direction.

“Who is it for?” Tulip asked simply.

In a battle of wits, Eugene might be smarter, but in a battle of wills, Tulip won. He told her every last detail of his exchange with Frankie and Tanya and begged tearfully for her not to tell Negan. She wouldn’t. Not yet.

__

Later that night, Tulip stayed later in the parlor room than she normally would. She was waiting. Frankie and Tanya always came here together after dinner for a glass of wine and to exchange the Sanctuary’s _hot gossip,_ or whatever. Tulip was flipping through an old beauty magazine with her feet perched on the coffee table as she waited. The glossy pages almost felt foreign in her fingers. It had been so long since she had so much as seen one of these. She supposed that if the human race managed to survive and rebuild a proper civilization someday, these magazines would end up in museums – the beautiful women on the covers crumbling, their perfect teeth yellowing with age and decay. People would someday gawk at an old copy of _Vanity Fair_ like they used to gawk at tigers at the zoo.

Tulip had been about to complete a quiz to find out which celebrity “hottie” was her soulmate when the two other wives walked in. Tanya nodded to Tulip with a tight-lipped smile. They poured their rosé, and both sat in one armchair, draped over each other like high school best friends sharing a desk in homeroom. Tulip loudly flipped the page in her magazine. “That new doctor guy’s kind of a freak, huh?” she asked, halfway looking up from the pink pages.

The two glanced at each other and laughed quietly. “Yeah, he’s quite the character.” Frankie agreed.

“He’s real smart, though.” Tulip added, not looking at them directly.

“Yeah! He showed us some of his little science experiments. It was actually pretty cool.” Frankie said, genuinely. Tanya gave her a sideways glare, as if to tell her to keep her mouth shut.

Negan would never beat around the bush so much… But Tulip was hoping one of them would slip before she even brought it up. They didn’t. They simply spoke quietly to each other, quickly draining their wine glasses.

Without a word Tulip rose, her heels clicking delicately as she quietly shut the double doors to the large room. Frankie and Tanya exchanged a glance. Tulip leaned against the closed doors, crossing her arms and ankles in front of her. She smirked at the two women. “I’m curious…” She began, “How did you think you were going to slip Negan the poison you had Dr. Smartypants make for you?”

They both stared, startled for a moment. Frankie almost spit out a mouthful of pink wine.

Tanya was the first to school her features into bored surprise. “Poison?"

Tulip scoffed. “Let’s cut the shit, huh? Everybody in this room knows what I know. There’s no point in playing dumb. So, just between us gals… How were you gonna do it?”

“ _Did you tell him,_ ” Tanya practically growled, rising from her seat.

Tulip shifted her weight casually, debating whether or not she should divulge that Frankie and Tanya secret was indeed, still a secret. “ _Did you,_ ” Tanya snarled again, “ _Tell him._ ” She looked ridiculous, baring her teeth at Tulip, trying her very best to intimidate her.

“No,” Tulip said simply. “I didn’t tell him.”

They both visibly sagged with relief. They would survive the night, at least. “Why not?” Frankie asked, stepping forward now. “If you knew… Why didn’t you tell him?”

Tulip swallowed forcefully. Frankly, she wasn’t exactly sure why she didn’t tell Negan. Perhaps it was because she wanted to carry this one through on her own. Perhaps she didn’t want the two women to die – no matter how much they both hated her. But perhaps she hoped there might still be some chance that they would get the poison from Eugene. That they would slip it to Negan in a glass of whiskey. And when they woke up the next morning they would find him, glassy-eyed and lifeless, stumbling around his apartment. Would it be better that way? She wanted him... Needed him - but he destroyed everyone and everything he got his hands on. The world would be better without him in it. But that was not a world Tulip was ready to be a part of.

She had come here hell-bent on ripping Frankie and Tanya two new assholes, but instead the three of them found themselves in a silent stalemate. Not quite in agreement, but not quite in disagreement either.

Tulip agreed not to tell Negan – for now. And Frankie and Tanya swore they wouldn’t go back to Eugene – also for now. They left it at that. Open, still a question hanging in the air. A silent agreement that if they needed it, the poison would always be an option. They would always have a way.


	13. You're Not Such an Easy Target

**Born for This - Royal Deluxe**

 

 

Tulip had gained a bit more freedom since her near-death encounter with Negan. It wasn’t because he had awarded it to her, but more because of the guilt that twisted his chest every time he caught a glimpse of the yellowing bruises still resembling his hands staining the soft skin of her neck. Tulip, in her wanderings, stayed outside as much as she could. Her olive-toned skin began to glow from the sun, as it once had while she was out on her own with nothing but that warm sun as a companion.

She stood out against the grey dustiness around her on the factory floor. Negan could spot her a mile away, her toned legs looked like pure gold against the stark black of her dress. She spotted him, too, and approached from across the room. The older woman she had been talking to gave her a pointed glance as she departed. “What’s this I hear about you givin’ workers points they didn’t earn?” Negan leaned back as he spoke, his leather jacket falling open around his chest. She could see the outlines of his tattoos through the thin white cotton of his worn-out t-shirt.

Tulip returned his smirk. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she grinned, and then added pointedly, “ _Sir,_ ”.

“Huh,” he remarked, looking down at her through this eye lashes. “So,” he began, shifting his weight. “Some of the boys are goin’ out for some target practice today. Training some newbies. How’d you like to tag along? Maybe pop off a couple of rounds yourself. Hell, it might get rid of that attitude of yours.”

Tulip held a hand to her chest, feigning offense at the remark. “Attitude?” she chuckled, but then said thoughtfully, “Yeah, I’d love to. If you’re serious.”

“Of course I’m serious.”

“You sure you want them to see me out there? After… Well, you know. After what I did.” She shifted, a little uncomfortably. “Wouldn’t that tarnish your image or whatever?”

Frankly, she wouldn’t normally care about Negan’s “image” amongst the Saviors. To hell with whatever everyone else thought of him – or them, for that matter. But to not only take her outside the walls, but put a loaded gun in her hand after she had deliberately rebelled against him? She was afraid Negan may look weak to the Saviors.

“I can tarnish my own damn image if I do so please, darlin’.” He looked her up and down quickly, then added, “Go change your clothes. We roll out in an hour.”

When Negan asked her to put something on other than the ‘sex suit’, she avoided asking for clothes for fear of sounding stupid. Back in her apartment, though, she had stashed away the jeans, sweater, and boots that Amber had brought her the day she arrived at the Sanctuary. The pants that had been loose on her when she first arrived now fit snugly on her hips, although the sweater was still a bit oversized. She had gained quite a bit of weight since she arrived, and finally looked healthy once again. The bruises on her neck had faded enough that she could simply drape her hair around her neck without anyone noticing the marks.

Tulip borrowed a small blue-handled hunting knife from Arat, who helped her fasten the sheath to her belt loops.

Negan was waiting for her when she returned back to her apartment.

He had made himself at home. Lucille lay propped near the door, his jacket draped over her small folding chair, and the man himself had kicked off his boots and sprawled out on the double bed. Tulip scoffed a laugh. “Please, come in!” she exclaimed sarcastically.

Propping himself up on his elbows, he took her in. Wearing the same clothes she had worn on her first day, but this time glowing from beneath them rather than looking like she would whither away. “You look good,” he said simply. Tulip sat on the edge of the bed, twisting around to face him. “Oh, please,” she waved her hand, “I always look good.”

He laughed at her joke, but it was true. She truly did.

Negan rolled over to her, gently running his fingers through the hair framing her face. He didn’t need to pull her closer because Tulip was already leaning in, and he kissed her gently. It was more of a caress of their lips than a kiss, but it made Tulip shiver all the same. The soft warmth of his lips against the roughness of his beard was in a stark contrast that made the sensation even more intense.

Negan reminded himself to kiss her more often.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve really shot a gun.” She said honestly. When she had killed that Savior, it was point blank. Her marksmanship was going to be rusty.

She had preferred a bow and arrow while she was on her own but was still a decent shot with a rifle. She considered herself average with a pistol and was secretly dreading the comments she knew the Saviors would voice when they saw her shaky pistol grip. But if they saw her with a compound bow… She could outshoot any one of them, even on her worst days.

As a teenager living in the South, her family – like most southerners - enjoyed hunting. Her father had been an avid bowhunter, though he never brought many deer home. Tulip never voiced it to him while he was alive, but he was truly an awful shot. No matter how many gadgets he added to his bow, it was rare for him to even snag a small doe. When Tulip turned thirteen, he took it upon himself to go out and buy her a compound bow of her own with all the bells and whistles and teach her to shoot. The very first time Tulip felt that arrow whoosh past her face, the fletching lightly kissing her cheek as she let the string go, she knew she had found something good.  

Soon she was a verifiable expert with that compound bow – but she would never kill anything. She simply enjoyed sending field points into hay bales, foam blocks, and burlap grain sacks. As she got older she learned to shoot a recurve bow and a long bow too, but the compound bow was always her favorite. The compound bow allowed her to take her time, take a deep breath as she steadied her arms, and release so quietly that you didn’t know she was there until the arrow was buried deep into her target.

After the fall, Tulip had protected her beloved bow with her life. The first time she had killed someone, had been over that bow. She shuddered internally at the thought. When she lost it was when things began to deteriorate. She couldn’t protect herself as well as she had been able to. She couldn’t hunt. Losing that bow had almost made her lose herself.

“You ready to go?” Negan asked, gently.

She sighed thoughtfully, shaking the fog of those memories out of her mind.

They left her apartment side by side, hands brushing occasionally as they walked in stride. Negan took a right turn at the fork in the corridor where Tulip had started to make a left, and they bumped hard into each other.

Negan laughed heartily, but Tulip didn’t find her nose in his armpit amusing. “Jesus,” she wiped at her face. “Where are you going?”

“The armory,” he said matter-of-factly, as if she should have already known. “What?” he asked incredulously at her stoic face. “You think we were pointing finger guns at the targets?”

Tulip resisted the urge to smack him at his comment. But she followed him down corridors she had never been, to one of the top floors of the factory. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but what she saw when Negan swung the double doors open was certainly not it. The armory was decidedly massive. Two armed guards at the door nodded to Negan and Tulip as they passed. The huge room was organized like a grocery store. To the left were three long rows of racks spanning the room filled with different kinds of rifles and long guns. Antique hunting rifles, 12-guages, semi-automatics, snipers, all the way up to military style M-16’s and other fully-automatic weapons. Underneath each rack were the stores of ammunition to go with them. The ammunition was stocked, but the quantity was not as impressive as the sheer number of guns themselves. In the center of the well-lit room were two rows filled with every variation of handgun and pistol one could imagine. There were suppressors, holsters, sights, bump-stocks, Kevlar vests and helmets, full body armors, and military-style flak vests. To the right of the room were the melee weapons. Machete’s galore, hatchets and axes, and even some unconventional weapons like swords and spears.

Negan watched Tulip’s face as she took in her surroundings. Say what you will about the Sanctuary, but they had an armory that would make the Defense Secretary cream his pants.

He saw her face change when she saw it, saw her eyes fill with delight and anticipation. Along the back wall, a camo patterned compound bow hung next to a rack filled with various kinds of arrows. She glanced sideways at him, with a smile brighter than he had ever seen. She went straight for it, ignoring Negan entirely.

In the back corner, underneath where the bow hung, an older, white-haired guy was repairing the fletching on a bundle of arrows. Tulip didn’t ask, didn’t even acknowledge that she wasn’t alone. She just took the bow down from the wall, and it immediately fell snugly into her grip.

“You an archer?” the older guy asked, snapping Tulip back to reality.

“Yeah,” Tulip laughed to herself, testing the weight of the weapon in her left hand. “’I was.” It was a little heavier than she was used to. This particular bow was designed more for a larger man. Likely a game hunter. The whisker sight would have allowed the arrows to leave the bow virtually silently, and the pom-poms on the drawstring would have quieted the thwap noise from the release so it wouldn’t spook the deer.

“It’s a little big for a lady like you, but we could make it work.” The man said, setting his work down. “I’m just glad to finally see someone pick that old thing up.”

“It’s perfect,” Tulip grinned.

“Tommy!” Negan exclaimed, arms outstretched as he joined them. “Long time, you old asshole.” He clapped the guy on the back.

“Tulip, darlin’, this is Tommy. Been with me since this place was born. Tommy, this is Tulip.”

The man glanced between Tulip and Negan, but obviously knew Negan well enough to not ask too many questions.

Tommy reached out to shake her hand, a bit hesitantly. Confused. “Nice to meet you, Ma’am.”

“And you,” Tulip replied.

“We could fit that bow to you, if you like. I know the fella who shot it before and he was quite a bit taller than you. I’ll fix that draw-length right quick. Maybe the weight, too. Whereabouts was your draw-weight last time you shot?”

“Forty, forty-five. But I’m a bit out of practice. Might need to start a little lighter.”             

Tommy smirked, his bushy mustache wrinkling up into his nose. “Bullshit,” he winked. “Shootin’ a bow’s like ridin’ a bike. You never forget.”

__

Tulip and Tommy caused the caravan out to the Saviors’ shooting range to be delayed. They took their time, measuring and cutting arrows, adjusting draw lengths, testing different releases. Tulip opted for a trigger release that fastened to her wrist so if she should need to move quickly, she wouldn’t lose it.

They drove about 20 minutes south of the Sanctuary, far enough that the gunfire wouldn’t draw any of the dead ones to the compound. Saviors filed out of their vehicles and began to set up their training exercises. The more experienced ones loaded weapons for the newbies. Some of the outpost heads had come to help train. Gavin and Regina were there, along with Simon, Laura, Arat, and Dwight. Some of them scowled as the trainees tried to hold their rifles.

They started them off easy, with single-shot bolt-action rifles. The five new trainees started firing downrange, and the air was filled with the almost constant boom and click of the rifles.

Tulip went to the back of the truck she rode in to grab the bow and quiver, completely opting out from the rifle training. Tommy and Negan found her fastening the strap of the quiver around her waist, arrows rattling inside. “Look. At. _You!_ ” Negan exclaimed. “You look like a fucking badass!”

Tulip rolled her eyes. “Just shut up and let’s shoot.”

She strutted to the range, ready to feel the power of the weapon in her hands. She preferred the bow, not only for its stealth, but because it felt like an extension of her. With a gun, you were simply the thing that pulled the trigger. A big enough gun even pushed back against you, fighting you as you shot it. But with a bow… A bow got its power because of the archer herself. Her strength, wrenching back that string, is what launched that arrow into the air.

“Alright sweetheart,” Tommy said hesitantly, joining her at the end of the range. “Let’s see what you got.” Next to her, Tommy nocked an arrow onto the string of a handmade longbow. “You first,” he smirked.

Tulip took a deep breath. She could feel Negan’s silent lurking presence behind her, and it steadied her. She wished it didn’t. But it did.

She removed an arrow from her quiver, reveling in the sound it made as she did. The bow string clicked as she nocked the arrow tightly and fastened the release beneath it.

The rifle fire slowly dwindled and then became silent. The higher-up Savior’s watched in quiet confusion. Negan’s wife – one that rebelled openly against him – being given a weapon was something they certainly had never seen before. Some of them whispered and snickered under their breath. Simon barked an order at some of them, but they kept watching. Perhaps they expected Tulip to reel around and send an arrow into Negan’s chest. What a spectacle that would be.

Tulip shook her head and tuned them out.

Inhaling, she drew the string back slowly. She strained a bit against the weight but continued to pull. The string rested neatly across her nose and chin. She let it settle there, as she had done thousands of times before. The hay bale with a spray-painted bullseye was about 25 yards downrange. They were starting off at an easy distance. Tulip took her time, lining up the yellow pin of her sight with the center of the bullseye. Her arm began to shake lightly. The motion was straining her muscles after all this time but in her mind, it felt like not a day had passed since she shot her own bow.

She exhaled one more time. Then, at the same moment, closed her eyes, and squeezed the release.

The string made a muffled _thwap_ sound, and in the next moment, the arrow buried into the hay with a whisper.

Damn near the dead-center of the bullseye.

She breathed a terse laugh to herself. She hadn’t lost her fire after all.

“See?” Tommy was grinning. “Like ridin’ a bike.”

Arat clapped lightly from where she watched, making Tulip’s laugh turn hearty. “Ho-ly _shit,_ ” Negan howled, echoing the thoughts of those around him. “Look at that!”

He was behind her, hand around her waist and lips at her ear so only she could hear. “You,” he whispered, and Tulip shuddered. “You are more incredible every God-damned day.”

Simon and Negan ordered everyone back to their own business, and the gunfire returned to a steady rhythm once again. Negan nodded to Tulip and Tommy and left them alone to shoot.

“You’re next.” Tulip told Tommy. He shook his head. “All right. But you’re gonna put me to shame.”

He drew back the string of his longbow. The wood and string groaned in unison. He was using wooden arrows with real bird feather fletching. It was a beautiful weapon, but not necessarily as practical as a compound bow in an apocalypse. He released his arrow. It flew straight and true, landing not an inch from Tulip’s arrow.

“Not bad for an old guy.” She remarked.

Tommy scoffed. “Let’s see you do better, then! Go on and plant one right in between those two.”

There was a tiny breadth between the arrows. If she did make the shot, the three would be brushing together in a uniform triangle. At twenty-five yards, it surely wasn’t impossible.  But it would still be a bit of a challenge, considering her lack of practice. With a deep breath, she drew another arrow from her quiver and nocked it.

__

 

Tulip and Tommy stayed longer than they should have. They stayed behind after the rest of the caravan, including Negan, had left. They experimented with distances and moving targets, even taking a out of few stray roamers who wandered by them. Tulip was exhilarated. She was laughing, free and unburdened. She laughed so hard when she had ruined one of Tommy’s homemade arrows that tears streamed down her face. She had tried the classic Robin Hood trick – and succeeded.

Soon her arms started to ache every time she drew back the bowstring and decided it’d be best to stop while she was ahead. Tommy drove them back to the Sanctuary in one of the smaller cars that had been left at the range. Dusk was approaching, but the clouds in the sky blocked out the sunset. The world around them became cast in grey-blue.

The ride back wasn’t very long, so Tommy didn’t wait to start talking.

“I hope you understand, darlin’…” he began, “Negan is not exactly a caring guy.”

Tulip swung her head around. Why would Tommy care about what happened between her and Negan?

He went on. “I’ve known him for a long time. I know him better than you. He’ll treat you nice and feed you a good meal, but at the end of the day, he just wants what you got between your legs.”

Tulip’s eyes suddenly flashed with an unexpected rage. She knew in the back of her mind that what Tommy was saying was the truth. “What makes you think—"

Tommy interrupted her. “Negan is a ticking time-bomb.”

Tulip only listened.

“You think you know where he’s goin’ one minute, and the next you’ve got a knife in your gut.” Tommy slowed the car a bit as they approached the Sanctuary fences. His voice dropped to a rough whisper. “Don’t get too close. When that fuse runs out, he’ll take out everything and everyone in a ten-block radius.”

They stopped at the guard station at the fence. She knew. She knew first hand what happened when he exploded. “What are you trying to tell me?” Tulip snapped.

Tommy shook his head, somberly. His eyes darkened as the sun slipped below the horizon in front of them. “I don’t want to see you strung up on this fence. Watch your ass in there, girl. Or lose it.”

__

**Who Are You - Svrcina**

Tulip and Tommy returned their weapons to the armory, and silently parted ways. Tulip started making her way upstairs to Negan’s apartment. She hadn’t yet decided if she would tell him what Tommy said.

The closer she got to Negan, the closer she wanted to get. Sometimes when they were alone, she would have to remind herself what he did. What he almost did to her. What he could still do. What he will do if things don’t go his way. Negan was dangerous. He was cruel. Yet she couldn’t stop her legs from taking her up those stairs, down the hallway to his room. She wanted to stay away. Every rational fiber in her body told her to get away and stay away. She was drawn to him. Drawn to the danger that surrounded him. Before she could convince herself not to be, she was at his door. She didn’t hesitate. She swung the door open.

There, on the couch, naked as the day she was born, was Amber. She was on all fours with Negan roughly grinding into her. His shirt and shoes were still on. His pants were half-off, exposing his ass to the moonlight streaming through the windows. He gripped a handful of Amber’s blonde hair, using it as leverage as he pumped relentlessly into her.

Tulip made a startled noise when she saw them. Both of their heads snapped to her.

“Oh Jesus,” Tulip muttered, trying to find the doorknob without looking. “ _Fuck!_ ”

“Tulip!” she heard Amber call out as she turned away, not even bothering to shut the door. She needed to get away.

Already halfway down the hall, she heard Negan’s booming voice yell, “God dammit!”

Tulip scrambled so quickly down the stairs she almost lost her balance a few times. She needed air. Suddenly the walls of the Sanctuary felt suffocating. It shouldn’t surprise her. She was under no illusion that Negan would stop fucking those other women. But to see him buried in the only person here she considered a real friend was overwhelming.

She couldn’t get the image out of her mind. His fist buried in her long locks, face contorted as he pounded into her.

Tulip made it to the main floor. Someone tried to greet her but she shoved past, slamming open the door to the upper balcony. The crisp night air seemed to latch on to her but refused to let her take a deep breath. Why was she reacting like this? She knew what went on when she wasn’t around. Yet somehow, seeing it made it real. Seeing how rough her was with her, how delicate she looked. It was wrong. It was all _wrong_.

 

Tulip took a gasping breath to steady herself. Her knuckles turned white where they gripped the balcony rail.

She knew he would follow her.

So she waited.

She counted three minutes before the door opened behind her. She didn’t turn around.

“Tulip,” he spoke quietly, gently. He wasn’t gentle with Amber. Tulip gripped the rail harder.

“Come on,” he whispered now. “Please.”

“Do you know how old she is?” Tulip ground through gritted teeth.

“What?”

“Do you even know how old she is?” she snapped, finally turning her head to him. She stood tall. Negan didn’t answer. “She is barely _twenty years old._ She is barely legal and she drinks herself into a fucking coma every other day because of this place!”

His eyes shifted downwards. Her eyes shone with anger.

“You think she wants you? You think she wants to be here? Come _on_ , Negan!” she threw her arms out, voice steadily rising. “None of them want to be here! They let you fuck them because they’re scared! They don’t do it because they want to! _None of them!_ ”

“Do you?” he whispered.

“ _What_ ,” she snapped back, startled.

Negan’s voice rose a little, enough for only her to hear. “Do you want to be here?”

That stopped her in her tracks. 

Her mind spun. She knew the answer to the question, but didn’t want to say it out loud. Saying it would make it true. Saying it would make it real.

His eyes were so piercing in the moonlight.

Her voice came out rough, quiet. “I do.”

Negan took a step toward her. “Then it ends tonight.”

“What does.”

Another step, surer this time. “The wives.”

He couldn’t be serious. He wouldn’t—

“They’re free. They can stay… I’ll take care of them. But they’re free.”

Tulip stuttered, stunned, “But… But what about—”

“I don’t care.”

“Negan, I—” her breath came ragged, uneven. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re free, too. If you want to be.”

Tulip started to close the gap between them. “I don’t think I do.”

The rational part of her mind screamed and fought inside of her head, but she ignored it.

Staring down at her, Negan’s face was somber. “Tell me,” he said, “ _Who are you?_ ”

The question he posed to all the Saviors. A question they all knew the answer to. It was how he organized his armies. How he knew who was loyal to him. Who belonged to him. They were all Negan.

 

Tulip inhaled sharply. Then, “I'm Tulip.”

Negan smiled into the darkness.

 

“ _Good._ ”

 


End file.
